


all we are is skin and bone

by carnival_papers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Javert Survives, Body Image, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Seine, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, Trauma, let's talk about our feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2599349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnival_papers/pseuds/carnival_papers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alone in bed, the candles flickering, Valjean stares at his hand. This gnarled thing—Javert had touched it like it was something precious. Javert said he had desired him. Had meant to kiss him. That he was not unattractive. Valjean has not looked in the mirror in many days, but he cannot believe that to be true. The scars, the brand, the slight limp—these outward manifestations of his sin have disfigured him. Marked him. And yet they do not seem to matter to Javert.</i>
</p><p>Javert and Valjean learn to touch and be touched, to forgive and be forgiven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we're a bloody mess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icicaille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this musical canon? is this brick canon? We Just Don't Know. many thanks to my wonderful beta galvin! i have no idea what i'm doing and i've never written for this fandom before and they were an invaluable resource. please forgive any timeline errors as i'm still trying to work everything out! i blame olivia for everything.

After the man leaves him bleeding on the ground, Javert’s first thought is to go to Jean Valjean. It takes a moment, a few moments, to pull himself up and wipe the blood from his mouth and the dirt and snow from his coat. His right knee is stiff and sore from the crack against the pavement. _Damn him_ , Javert thinks, and steadies himself before limping down the street. 

Javert knows how this will go. Valjean will be surprised—horrified, even—at Javert’s shape, particularly the cut across his face, which is deep and still dripping red down his neck. Valjean will insist that Javert sit down, take off his coat, and unbutton his shirt. He will work, with gentle, calloused fingers, at the bruises and new knots before he fetches salves and creams and fresh cloths from Cosette’s powder room. Valjean will clean the wound on Javert’s cheek and wash the dried blood from his face and neck and hands. It will be chaste, and it will be maddening.

Still, Javert goes, chilled as he is, and anticipates the hot tea Valjean will no doubt make. It takes him longer than usual to get there—he has to stop a few times to rest his aching leg—but he finally reaches the small house, its familiar door. Javert knocks, hard, prays Valjean is not sleeping too deeply. The pain in his leg is worse now, and his fingers are beginning to numb. He raps on the door again, harder this time. There’s a flicker of candlelight in the window and the quiet sound of the lock turning. The door, still chained, opens slightly, and Valjean’s face is a sliver lit by flame.

“Javert?” he says. Valjean closes the door for a moment to slip off the chain. Something like annoyance strains in Javert’s chest. “It is very late,” Valjean says upon reopening the door, “and cold, too.”

Javert sets his jaw against the growing pain in his leg and head, finding his fingers still sticky with blood. “I’m aware,” he says. Valjean makes a gesture for Javert to come in. He does not notice—at least, does not mention—Javert’s limp, nor his bloodied face. But the ache has gotten worse, and when Javert steps across the threshold into Valjean’s home, he falls with a hard thump to the floor, making a small noise of defeat.

Valjean fumbles with the candle, the door, before crouching next to Javert. He puts a hand on Javert’s shoulder and illuminates his face in the candlelight. Javert tenses under the weight of Valjean’s palm, tries to speak but feels the words catch in his throat. And then he sees it—a lovely, ghastly scarlet gash spilling across Javert’s cheek. “Oh,” Valjean breathes, “Javert—”

Javert squirms as he pushes himself up with his forearms and rests his back flat against the wall. The fall has knocked the breath out of him; Valjean is close, concerned. Javert is excruciatingly aware of the candle, of Valjean’s hand tightening around his shoulder, of the pain radiating out from his kneecap. “I do not think I can stand,” he winces.

And then Valjean is gone with the candle, leaving Javert is alone in the dark, cold hallway, still sore, newly shivering. There’s a clattering from a far-off room, heat coming from the kitchen, and eventually, Valjean briefly reappears with an oil lamp and a bowl of water before leaving again. Javert unbuttons his coat, muscles tight, and slips it off his shoulders. The blood on his face is mostly dry now; the pain is deadened by the chill.

“You are in a sorry state,” Valjean says when he finally returns. His voice is irritatingly sympathetic, Javert notes, though it _is_ reassuring. Valjean sets an assortment of tins and folded towels near Javert’s knee. “What has happened to you?”

“A thief,” Javert mutters, as if the details are unimportant.

In truth, the details are everything: the night was cold with February’s first snow, and Javert, tired of lying awake in bed, dressed too lightly for the weather and stepped outside. At times the self-destructive urge still heats within him, though it has been months since he planned his own death. He blames all of this—the blood on his face, the sleepless nights, the lingering thoughts of suicide, the _living_ —on Jean Valjean. And yet he cannot be upset with him. Cannot even entertain the idea of being upset with him.

Valjean’s hands are large and rough but they are kind, welcome, though Javert instinctively draws back at each touch. Valjean apologizes for pressing too hard and dips his fingers into a tin of ointment before massaging it into the bruised skin on Javert’s neck. Javert cannot bring himself to look Valjean in the eye, even to thank him, and instead stares at the lamp, burning bright in the darkness.

In truth, Javert has felt this way for some time—wound too tight, as if one wrong move might destroy him. After the parapet, the Seine, the pleas to stay alive, Javert was unraveled. It was easy then to blame it on melancholy. But in Valjean’s house, Valjean’s bed, with hot coffee each morning and tea each night, the real reason was clear.

On the first night, the hardest night, Valjean insisted—gently, but insisted nonetheless—that he stay in the room with Javert. “For your safety,” Valjean said. A benevolent gesture, as are all things with Valjean. Still, it was galling—the night was sleepless and thick with silence, Valjean in the corner with a book and a candle, watching.

“You have a penchant for getting yourself hurt,” Valjean says. “I should tell you to be more careful, but I know it will do no good.” The lamplight flickers again and Valjean’s smile is soft in the orange light. He cleans the ointment off his fingers and unfolds a small towel, which he dips into the bowl of water. Javert tries to ignore the way his hand shakes when Valjean takes it, attributing the tremor to age or cold or anything other than what it is. Valjean draws the wet towel across Javert’s bloody knuckles, rubs it against his fingers and nails until the towel is red and Javert’s hand is clean. Javert feels his muscles tighten beneath Valjean’s hand, fingers curling into a fist. Valjean dries Javert’s wet hand before moving to the other, repeating the same gentle motions on the blood crusted there.

In truth, he has known for years, since Valjean was called Madeleine and perhaps even before, that there was something between them that transcended the bond of convict and jailer, hunter and hunted. And yet when he thinks of it, tries to name it, to tease it out of the knot in his stomach, Javert feels only confusion, shame, indescribable frustration. But it remains there, heavy within him, the only part of him not stone.

Even if he could name it—speak it into existence—whatever it was would hurt Valjean, or worse, repulse him. After all this time, all the goodness, the gentle fingers and soft eyes and kindness from Jean Valjean—the potential loss is too great.

“I am sorry for coming so late,” Javert says. He does his best to ignore Valjean’s saintly downcast look, how Valjean focuses on a stubborn cut across Javert’s knuckles as though it is the only thing in this world that matters. “I did not know where else to go.”

“You are always a welcome visitor, Javert.” Valjean’s smile is peculiar but it is benevolent, and he cleans the last of the blood from Javert’s hand. He has left the gash across Javert’s cheek for last, and after he soaks another towel in the water, he turns Javert’s face to the light—softer now—and inspects the extent of the damage. “This cut is very deep,” he says. “Whatever I do to it will be painful.”

_Yes_ , Javert wants to say, _but you will be kinder than any doctor_ , or, _it will not be that bad_ , or, _it will not compare to—_

In truth, it will not compare to what Javert himself has done. What he has inflicted on himself and others. What he has inflicted on Valjean. When he leapt from the parapet—and it _was_ a leap, though Valjean refers to it as _when you fell_ —that was what he thought of. Suicide as penance or repentance. Anything to reset the balance of the world spun out of orbit. He wanted to die. _Should_ have died, but there was Valjean in the water, still strong after so much, hauling Javert out like he had hauled the Pontmercy boy. Javert cursed him then, and the curses are there on his tongue tonight, bitten back behind his teeth.

“I know,” Javert says. Valjean shifts his legs around so that he is on his knees—Javert sees him grimace and wants to apologize for the pain he must be in—and then Valjean’s face is there next to Javert’s. His fingers move to the border of the cut, sticking in the still-wet blood on Javert’s jawline. Javert bites his lip hard when Valjean prods at the wound; fresh blood oozes out, and Valjean scrambles for the wet towel in the bowl. Javert’s nails dig into the heels of his hands. It is not the ache that is unbearable but something else, _the_ something else that is always there between them, that unutterable thing that sits in Javert’s body like something heavy and hot. Valjean dabs at Javert’s face and apologizes under his breath for the sting.

Javert focuses on what he knows to be true in this moment. Jean Valjean’s hands are on Javert’s face and they are there with good intentions, best intentions. Jean Valjean’s hand is underneath Javert’s jaw and it is steady, steady, even when Javert flinches and shrinks back. Jean Valjean is cleaning the cut on Javert’s face with quiet insistence and care. Jean Valjean’s breath is low and measured where Javert’s is shallow; Jean Valjean’s pulse is beating through his fingertips and Javert can feel it against his face. Jean Valjean is unbearably close. Jean Valjean is too good for this earth.

In truth, old men should not walk alone on snowy nights like these. Javert knows this, has always known this, has always known that the night in Paris is beautiful and dangerous. But this, all of this, had weighed on him too long and kept him up too many sleepless hours. The unnameable thing in him—still unplaceable, indefinable—was bursting, breathing, as it has in the months since the Seine.

It was too much. A torment.

Javert did not know then why he went out into the snow, and now, under Valjean’s hands, it is still unclear. The unraveling again, Javert supposed, the need to self-destruct. Valjean had worked most of that out of him in those nights after the jump, when he would read quietly in the corner and offer up biblical aphorisms about the worth of Javert’s life. How Javert had hated it! Too many pithy words, empty sentiment. But with Valjean, of course, the sentiment was not empty. Of course.

The stars are so beautiful and bright in the winter. Javert tells himself this is why he left his apartment at such a late hour. The snow was still fresh and unbroken on the ground and the stars so picturesque and clear and close in the cold. He has always loved them; they have always stilled his mind when nothing else would. And tonight he was restless, tired of the weight on and in his chest. Tired of ignoring it.

“This will burn,” Valjean says. Javert nods—the smallest movement—and Valjean rubs ointment into the open wound with the pad of his thumb. It takes all of Javert’s composure not to swear then. He digs his knuckles into his thighs and is suddenly reminded of the still-present pain in his knee—duller now, but still there. Valjean takes Javert’s wrist with his clean hand, firm and steady, and Javert is undone.

“Please,” Javert breathes, though he does not know what he means by it. Valjean drops Javert’s wrist, fingertips brushing against the knob of bone there at the bottom of Javert’s thumb, and folds his hands in his lap.

“Forgive me,” Valjean murmurs, “I only meant to offer some—”

_I am a fool_ , Javert thinks, and the distance between himself and Valjean feels infinite.

In truth, Javert knows why he ventured out into the cold. It was not self-destruction, at least not in the same way his walk to the parapet had been. In truth, it was the weight, the heavy thing inside him that has hung there for years. Since the night after the Seine, the tea and the care, the words for the thing have begun to untangle themselves from the knot. _Affection_ —maybe, but that does not quite feel right. _Love_ is too strong and somehow not strong enough.

In the snow, Javert settled on the word _need_. It has always floated in his mind when it came to Valjean—Javert has always _needed_ Valjean, whether to return Valjean to Toulon, to make Valjean pay for breaking his parole, to be rescued by him.

That first night in Valjean’s bed, Javert managed a cold laugh when Valjean said, “We are not that different.” It seemed unfathomable then, audacious of Valjean to even say. _How dare he_ , Javert thought, _after all of this_. But now it does not seem so strange, and Valjean’s hands are clumsy when he reaches for Javert’s face again, and the word _need_ repeats in Javert’s mind like a metronome.

Valjean slicks a cold cream over the wound and the pain numbs. “I hope I did not offend you,” Valjean says, one hand still at Javert’s jaw, the other thumb there at Javert’s cheek, the top of the cut, fingers extending across Javert’s sideburns to the curve of his ear. The lamplight is dim and dull but Valjean’s eyes are still bright as stars and Javert shakes his head, says that isn’t what he meant, that he is not offended, couldn’t be offended, and Valjean is smiling, and Javert is reaching for him with limp arms and _need_ pounds in Javert’s chest, fingertips, head.

In truth, the thief was not much of a thief at all. He was young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, with a knife in his hand that he did not need to use. Javert is tall but the boy was taller, arms long, and he slipped behind Javert with no trouble, the point of his knife at Javert’s neck. Javert, lost in thought, was startled by the sudden prick of the knife against his skin. The boy hissed something about taking Javert’s money or his life—called him _big man, rich man_ —and Javert moved, ducked, the knife dragging against flesh and cutting deep into the soft skin of Javert’s cheek. The boy elbowed Javert to the ground, Javert’s knee cracking against the pavement, and pinned him there until each pocket was thoroughly searched for coin or other valuable trinkets. But the boy was disappointed at Javert’s empty pockets, and though he held the knife at Javert’s neck once more, his hand shook. The blood already on the snow was satisfying enough, and so he left Javert face-down on the street.

There on the ground, Javert thought of how much he needed Valjean—and now, with Valjean’s face close, he thinks the same, and the heavy knotted thing in his chest unwinds when he abruptly presses his lips to Valjean’s. It is a sudden movement that sends an ache down his spine but he is holding onto Valjean’s shoulders and Valjean’s hands are still on his face and this, _this_ is what he has needed for so very long. Javert feels Valjean’s fingers twitch against his face, Valjean’s shoulders draw up and then relax, Valjean’s pulse stammer and quicken.

In truth, he had expected Valjean to pull back sooner, to immediately push him away with revulsion. Still, Javert is disappointed when Valjean turns his head and covers his mouth with shaking hands. Valjean’s eyes are cast downward at the lamp and he shifts his body around again, reaches for the lamp and stands.

“I shall—I shall fetch a bandage for your—” Valjean makes a vague gesture towards Javert’s face before taking the lamp and stumbling down the hallway, leaving Javert in the entryway alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/12/2014 - stealth-edited to fix a reference to cosette's old bedroom when in fact cosette is still there. whoops. i would like to reiterate that i have no idea what i'm doing.


	2. a series of devout formations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to olivia and galvin for betaing and for allowing me to yell at them on skype about this! god bless 'em

In the two weeks since Javert kissed him, Jean Valjean has thought of little else. It is strange, really—the anxiety he felt over Cosette’s impending nuptials has mostly dissipated, replaced by new concern over Javert’s opinion of him.

It was an odd night. After it happened, Valjean had blundered down the hall to Cosette’s powder room, hand clapped over his mouth as though afraid of what might come out. There in the floral-bedecked room, he stared into the mirror and wondered what could have possessed Javert to do such a thing. _He is not in his right mind_ , Valjean thought, and blamed the incident on blood loss or head injury. Still, it was not easy to step out of the room and face Javert again. To look him in the eye would be to acknowledge that the situation had occurred, that it needed to be addressed.

They have not spoken about it since, and Valjean has tried his best to put it out of his mind. But it remains there, though he should be preoccupied with wedding plans and preparations. It has all gotten muddled up in his head—what is best for Javert, what is best for Cosette, what is best for himself. He finds it hard to separate them. Out loud he would attribute this to old age but—but out loud he would never mention such a thing.

Since he learned of Cosette’s engagement to the Pontmercy boy, Valjean has been wracked with fear and concern over how he might soil her good name. The daughter of a criminal entering those circles of society? She deserves the best, Valjean is sure of that, and he wants her to be happy. But she is everything, and losing her, giving her away, is harder than he had originally expected.

At first it was not so bad. It was pleasant, even, to see her spending time with Pontmercy after the barricade fell. The boy was lucky to be alive, luckier to have Cosette, and Valjean sensed that Pontmercy knew that, even if he did not know how he had managed to survive that night at the barricade, in the sewers.

Valjean shudders to think of that night and everything it entailed—hauling Pontmercy’s half-dead body through miles of muck, the old innkeeper in the grime with greedy hands, pleading with Javert for a few more hours of freedom. It all seems like some horrible dream now, but the ever-present ache in Valjean’s lower back and shoulders reminds him of the weight he carried.

The wedding is tomorrow. He has told himself for months that he will not go, that it will be too painful, but Cosette’s eyes are bright when she talks about the dress and the plans and how happy she is that he will be there. So he must.

What unsettles him about the marriage is the inevitability of a lifetime of loneliness. Valjean is old now, his life is mostly done, and that does not bother him, really, because there are books to read and gardens to tend. But when he gives her away—well, who will share in the prayers, the meals, the bounties of his garden? Cosette wanted to plant strawberries, so he bought the seeds and saved them in a box for the next planting season. Soon she will have a garden of her own, and the house will be empty, and eventually, she will forget about him.

For some time Valjean had thought that Javert might be—not a substitute (for Cosette is irreplaceable, Valjean is certain of that) but an acquaintance, a familiar face. After all the trouble they’d been through, it seemed impossible, and yet Javert began to visit more and more often once he started to recover from his fall. Peculiar, Valjean has thought, that the inspector who once thought them enemies might now come to enjoy his company. And more peculiar still that Valjean had begun to enjoy the Inspector’s.

Now, though, Valjean fears that he may have thrown all that away with his treatment of Javert that night—hiding away like he did not want to see Javert, like he could not bear to look at his face. He did not come out of Cosette’s powder room for what seemed like hours, until Javert knocked on the doorframe. Javert nearly fell again when Valjean opened the door, and Valjean remembers reaching to steady him before thinking _no, no, mustn’t_ and drawing his hands back against his chest.

“I do not wish to trouble you any longer,” Javert said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. “I have bandages at home and you have already been too generous.”

The cut across his face was clean but still deep and might catch dirt, become infected maybe, without a bandage. “You are in no shape to walk back there,” Valjean said. “Please—stay.”

Javert refused. Strangely, he paused at the front door a moment before stepping back into the cold again. It was hard to see much in the dim lamplight, but Valjean could see Javert’s fingers there, light against the gash on his cheek, his eyes searching for something to settle on. “Thank you, Valjean,” Javert said.

Valjean resisted the urge to correct him— _Fauchelevent_ , he should have said. But Javert was gone too quickly with his head down against the snow falling ever faster.

The longer he goes without speaking about it, the more weighed down Valjean feels. And so, after morning prayers, Valjean begins the long walk to Javert’s apartment. The frozen ground has finally begun to thaw and the earliest signs of spring are visible beneath snow and ice. For the first time in weeks, the streets are full of people. Though the air is still cold, it is crisp and refreshing in Valjean’s lungs, and he takes deep, hungry breaths that remind him of the way freedom first felt.

He has only been to Javert’s apartment once before. It was a week or so after Javert’s fall, when Javert had finally had enough of being in Valjean’s home. He insisted Valjean let him leave, and so Valjean did, and they took a cabriolet to the apartment because Javert’s legs were still weak. Valjean tipped the porter and left a note with the landlady about Javert’s situation, much to Javert’s chagrin. “Do send for me if you have need of anything,” he said to Javert. “We have supper at six o’clock each evening; do not hesitate to join us.” Javert slammed the door in Valjean’s face but, that next Thursday, knocked at Valjean’s door at a quarter to six.

Now Valjean finds himself doing the knocking, and when Javert does not immediately answer the door, Valjean loses a little hope. He knocks a few more times, and just when he turns to leave, the door opens. “Have you no patience?” Javert says. He is in a fine mood.

“May I come in?” Valjean says. Javert moves to shut the door but Valjean catches it with a flat palm. “Javert.”

“You’ve suddenly decided I am worth speaking to, then?” Javert sounds like a petulant child. Valjean secretly finds it a bit amusing. He doesn’t know what to say, though, so he makes a vague noncommittal gesture with the hand that’s not on the door. “Do not think I am unaware of how long it has been.”

The cut on Javert’s face has not quite healed up the way it should. “You have not been taking care of that spot,” Valjean says. Javert looks momentarily incredulous before trying to shut the door once more. “Will you let me in, please?” Valjean says again, more forcefully this time. He doesn’t wait for Javert to answer. Javert harrumphs.

The apartment is smaller than Valjean remembers. It is not as orderly as he expects it to be—Javert’s boots, caked with mud, are next to the door; there are dirty plates and day-old cups of coffee on the little table in the kitchen. Valjean catches a glimpse of Javert’s unmade bed before Javert stands ahead of him in the entryway, arms crossed over his chest, feet bare on the wood floor, toes curled against the cold.

Javert’s shirt is unbuttoned down to his sternum, the cleave of his collarbone barely visible beneath the thin fabric. Since his fall, Javert has looked unusually gaunt. Valjean remembers what a struggle it was to get him to take food in those first few days, how—more than once—he spooned soup into Javert’s mouth as though he were a sick child. “Promise me you will eat,” he said to Javert on the last night. And Javert laughed curiously, the sound like rocks in water, and said something about not giving Valjean the pleasure of saving him a second time.

“Do you have something to say?” Javert eventually says after Valjean looks at him for too long.

Valjean is shaken. “Several things,” he stammers. “Perhaps we might sit down?”

Javert points him to the seat at the kitchen table before gathering up the dirty dishes one by one and depositing them on the counter. Valjean means to ask if Javert needs any help, but the words seem wrong and Javert would refuse anyway. Instead he passes one of the cups to Javert, his hands shaking, and Javert’s face almost softens. When the table is cleared, Javert fetches a chair from the corner of the room and sets it down across the table from Valjean with a thud.

Valjean does not speak at first. He does not know where to begin. During the walk over, he had made a plan of what to say—to talk about Cosette’s wedding, the Pontmercy boy, his own fear of the impending solitude. But the words are gone now, and the stubble on Javert’s jaw is more apparent in the light, and the cut across his face needs to be bandaged, and—

“Out with it,” Javert says, impatient.

“Cosette is to be—her wedding is tomorrow,” Valjean finally says. “Certainly you know that already, but—” He cannot finish the sentence. Does not know how he should finish it. He looks to Javert in hopes that he will offer some assistance, but Javert’s gaze is as impenetrable as ever.

“But?”

Valjean holds his head in his hands, the heels of his palms there against his eyes. “I cannot bear it. There is no way.”

Even with his hands over his eyes, Valjean can feel the weight of Javert’s stare. “You cannot miss your daughter’s wedding,” Javert says, a hint of hesitation in his voice.

Valjean does not say anything.

“Valjean,” Javert says.

“I know,” Valjean says when he lifts his head up. “She would never forgive me if I were not there.” He manages a laugh. “For weeks I have been thinking it may not be so difficult to give her away, but—but she is all I have.”

“She will still be here,” Javert says. He pauses. “It is the happiest day of her life; don’t be foolish.”

Something in Valjean’s chest cracks open. The happiest day of her life, of course, but what of his? “I am being foolish,” he says, and the words hang there in the silence. His eyes sting; he feels his face flush. “But you cannot understand—” he begins again, his voice wavering. “You cannot understand how difficult—”

He had not expected to weep in front of Javert. Valjean covers his eyes once more, bites his lip, hopes Javert is not looking at him. “You cannot possibly understand how difficult it is to give her away—” he says between gasping breaths, “after so long, and so much.” Valjean wipes the tears away, murmurs, “oh, saints preserve me,” and studies the woodgrain on the table, afraid to meet Javert’s eyes again.

After some silence, Javert stands, the chair groaning against the floor. “Would you like some tea?” he asks, though it sounds more like a statement than a question. Valjean does not answer, but Javert sets off to make the tea anyway. It is a delicate and involved process, one that Valjean is almost surprised to see Javert carry out. He pinches tea leaves from the caddy— _wherever did he get this,_ Valjean wonders—as though they were snuff and drops them into the chipped cups. Javert carefully pours hot water from the copper kettle and watches the steam rise as the leaves steep and the water turns to tea.

Javert places a cup in front of Valjean and, in an apology or an accident—Valjean is not sure which—touches Valjean’s shoulder, just for an instant, with fingertips still warm from the kettle. Valjean takes the cup in his hands and feels the heat radiate out across his body. “Thank you,” he says, the steam unfurling around his face.

“Drink,” Javert says, and Valjean sips politely. Though the tea has not quite steeped enough, it is hot and it is welcome, so Valjean drinks. “I am still learning to think before I speak,” Javert mumbles. “I hope you will forgive me.”

“I do not hold grudges, Javert. You of all people should know that.”

Javert nods. “Then I suppose my—my actions the other evening—”

“Javert,” Valjean says, “all is forgiven.” Valjean reaches across the table to touch Javert’s hand but Javert curls his fingers into a fist. Valjean touches Javert’s knuckles instead, half-expecting Javert to move his hand out of Valjean’s reach. Valjean feels Javert’s muscles tense but he lets his fingers linger there against Javert’s hand for a moment more. “You need not worry about it any longer.”

Valjean had expected to feel a weight lifted in discussing this, but instead he remembers Javert’s hands on his shoulders, the way something in his stomach suddenly felt knotted at the press of Javert’s mouth to his. How he had not even considered the strangeness of his fingers against Javert’s face. He feels the need to draw back again, to apologize again now for touching Javert’s hand. Instead he tries to push the thoughts out of his mind and reprimands himself for making something out of nothing, for painting a mistake into something more.

When Valjean removes his hand, Javert gulps down his tea. “This is not very good,” Javert says when the cup is drained. “I am still learning to make tea, too.”

Valjean laughs. “I admit I was surprised to hear you offer it. I had thought you only a coffee drinker.”

Javert stands again and gathers the empty cups. “I suppose my taste for tea is your fault; you plied me with so much of it after—”

He does not finish the sentence. He does not need to.

“It does a body good,” Valjean says simply.

Javert returns to his seat and whatever pretenses were between them seem to have dissipated. Valjean allows himself to relax, to catch Javert’s eyes again. In the decades they have known each other, Valjean has often felt himself tiptoeing around Javert, because of fear or guilt or disguise. Now, though, strange as it is, Valjean feels almost contented around him. It occurs to Valjean that he has not ever had a real friend before. Strange that it should be Javert. Strange that Valjean should not mind.

Javert breaks the silence. Clears his throat. “What will you do?” he says. “About your daughter’s wedding.”

Valjean sighs. “I cannot miss it. I shall have to go.”

“Perhaps it will not be so bad,” Javert says, “a public event, all there for your daughter?”

“All there for Monsieur Pontmercy, but Cosette by extension, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Javert says. “I try to forget about him.”

They share a laugh at that before the silence settles in again, more comfortable this time, not unwelcome. Valjean feels himself smiling at something, though he cannot say what it might be.

“Valjean, forgive me if this is inappropriate, but—but what are you so afraid of?” Javert’s tone is uncharacteristically gentle.

“Many things,” Valjean says, eventually. He runs down the list in his mind. “I fear Cosette will learn my history and be disgraced. I fear Monsieur Pontmercy may steal her away from me. I fear Cosette will replace me with him. I fear being alone.” Valjean pauses. “I fear that when I give her away, I shall give my happiness also. I do not just fear that one; I know it to be true.”

Valjean watches Javert’s fingers flinch and flex. Javert looks nervous, like he doesn’t know what to say, so Valjean speaks again. “Do not worry about me, Javert.”

Javert looks flabbergasted. “I have seen how you treat yourself when you think no one is watching. You live on crusts of bread and prayers alone,” he says. “How am I not to—”

“And that is all I need,” Valjean cuts him off. His tone is final. “Your concern is goodhearted, but it is misplaced.”

Javert does not argue with that.

“I had best be going,” Valjean says, moving to his feet. “There are still preparations to be done—I should check if Cosette needs any assistance.”

“Of course,” Javert says. “Yes.” The words are rushed and Valjean wonders if this is what Javert has wanted all along—just for him to leave. He does not mention it.

“You are welcome tomorrow,” Valjean says at the threshold, “though you will have to remember to call me Fauchelevent.”

“It is always complicated with you,” Javert says, not unkindly. His arms are crossed over his chest again; Valjean notices once more the way Javert’s bones move beneath his skin, as though too close to the surface.

“There will be plenty to eat. Shall I see you? I shall have to explain to Cosette, but—”

“Goodbye, _Fauchelevent_ ,” Javert says. Something like a smile plays at his lips.


	3. good love, your whole life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, many thanks to olivia and galvin for beta help and making sure i didn't say "pants" instead of "trousers"

After some deliberation—not much, he will admit, if pressed—Javert decides he will attend Valjean’s daughter’s wedding. Not for her, and certainly not for Pontmercy, but for Valjean, and nothing else. Valjean had looked totally distraught, standing there at Javert’s door, and though Javert had initially felt some annoyance at Valjean’s unplanned arrival, the man had a way of softening him.

Strange. That is the only way Javert can think of to put it. This whole arrangement between them is strange. Strange that he had gone to Valjean for help; strange that Valjean had come to him; strange that neither of them had minded. Strange that Valjean had dared to touch him again and did not fear another misguided, greedy kiss.

 _How stupid of me!_ Javert thinks, not for the first time in these two weeks. He has drawn up scenarios of what could have happened, of every possible wrong path: Cosette seeing the two of them there on the floor, or Valjean never speaking to him again, or—heaven forbid—Valjean reciprocating. He has tried not to think about that one so much.

Javert sets to cleaning the dirtied dishes and feels more than a little embarrassed about the messy state of the apartment. For a man of so few things, the small apartment is surprisingly cluttered, and Javert fears that Valjean may think him some kind of sloven, or, worse yet, that the melancholy has returned. In truth he has been too busy kicking himself over not making more of an effort to speak to Valjean, arranging to return to work at the station— _whenever you are ready_ , they told him, and filed the papers for unpaid leave—and asking God for answers.

He rolls up his shirtsleeves and dips the first plate in the shallow basin. The water slips over his knuckles, unexpectedly cold, and Javert feels his joints stiffen. He slicks the soap over the plate until it suds up before scrubbing crusted food or liquid stain from its surface and drying it with a clean towel. Then the next plate, then the saucers, then the cups.

The repetitive motions of dip, slick, scrub, and dry are soothing to him, have a way of redirecting his focus. When he was younger, Javert thought of himself as a machine, all moving parts with one purpose. But now, after the gloom, the river and Jean Valjean, the purpose is lost or otherwise confused. So he concentrates on the stubborn rings in the bottom of the coffee cups, the flow of water between his fingers, the promise of seeing Valjean again tomorrow.

He does not know what he was thinking. In his mind, Javert goes over the events of the day in excruciating detail—not letting Valjean in the apartment for fear of what he might do; offending Valjean with his comments about his daughter; watching the old man cry. At Valjean’s house in those grey nights after the Seine, Valjean made tea when Javert felt the self-destructive urges return. After offhand comments about missing the feel of control, the promise of death, Valjean would excuse himself before returning with cups that felt wrong in Javert’s hands and water hot enough to draw the sorrow out of his body. It became a kind of ritual there, the pain and the tea, and when he was finally home, Javert scrimped from his savings to recreate the little communion. It seemed only right to comfort Valjean the same way.

Javert had not meant to touch him. Had not intended to, this time. He had only wanted to set the cup down but his fingers landed on Valjean’s shoulder as if pulled there. It was only for a moment, but Javert remembers how the muscles had twitched under his hand, how his fingers curved around Valjean’s bones. And then Valjean’s hand on his—innocent, no doubt, because there has never been anything sinful in the man. How he touched even after Javert curled away, how he allowed his hand to rest there, how Javert lets his own hand rest there now in unsatisfying imitation.

The last cup is small and cracked and Javert recalls the sight of Valjean’s fingers wrapped around it, Valjean breathing in the dark earthy scent of the tea, drinking in deeply and not wincing at the taste. Javert scrubs the cup with vigor, works the washcloth with his thumbs until something in his hand cramps. When it is clean, when he is too tired to scrub any longer, he sets the cup down too hard. It breaks in his palm, tiny porcelain pieces falling to the floor and embedding in his skin.

 

* * *

 

The night is sleepless. Javert tosses and turns in bed and thinks of how much better the situation could have been handled—how he might have apologized for what he did to Valjean, or admitted his feelings, or asked to never see him again. He has tried that once already, but even an attempt at suicide could not keep Jean Valjean from him.

Every path seems wrong, every action miscalculated. And yet when the sun finally blessedly pours through the window, Javert feels something like relief at knowing he will be able to see Valjean again. As soon as the thought enters his head, he chastises himself for it, but it still lingers there.

Javert dresses slowly, taking time to inspect each article of clothing, to study himself in the mirror. It seems puerile to care so much about his appearance when, for the last eight months, that has been the furthest thing from his mind. Now, stark in the cold light, he wishes he had cut his hair, that the wound on his cheek were not still so apparent.

In the armoire, he finds remnants of the semi-public life of an inspector: the navy tailcoat, the not-quite-fashionable ecru waistcoat, the dusty black hat. He slips them on as though they were a costume, the fit all wrong in the waist and thighs. He realizes now how thin he has gotten—why Valjean’s passing comment about there being food at the wedding buried deep in his chest and sat there, stinging.

Javert reminds himself that Valjean means well, even if he does not always express it that way. The man is old and anxious, especially in these past few weeks, and in spite of all their troubles, Javert knows that Valjean would never intentionally hurt him. If there is one thing Javert has learned in all these years, it is that Valjean only does things with good intentions. Javert remembers the evaded arrests, the broken parole, the pleas for a few more hours of freedom—back then, Valjean’s every action seemed designed to trick, to avoid imprisonment once again. But now it seems clear that Valjean has never been anything other than what he appeared to be: a good man.

 _A great man_ , Javert thinks, and immediately shakes his head at the thought.

He ties his hair back with a black silk ribbon frayed at the ends and examines his face again—the sunken cheeks, the grey pallor to the skin, the eyes slow and bleary. He cannot stand to look at himself for very long. Javert turns away, buttons his greatcoat and pushes the hat down over his head, and ventures out into the fray.

The streets are alive with activity— _Shrove Tuesday_ , he thinks, _of course_ —and the sounds of music and laughter. Javert shoulders between costumed revelers, harlequins and clowns, men and women in Carnival colors and carriages full of maskers. It is enough to make his head swim. Still, there is something joyful about the noise and the dancing. As he passes through them, one of the merrymakers—someone in pink tights and a grotesque mask—grabs Javert by his lapels and pulls him close. Before Javert can protest, the creature laughs beneath the mask and pins a lily to Javert’s coat, then pushes him away again.

Javert stumbles between the throng of people, pushing from every direction, and pats his pockets to ensure nothing has been stolen. Indeed, everything is still there, and the bright white flower stands out against his black coat. It feels appropriate for a wedding, so he tips his hat in the direction of the masked creature, but it has disappeared back into the crowd.

 _An odd day for a wedding_ , Javert thinks.

In the Rue Saint-Antoine, there is yet another crowd of people before the church of Saint-Paul. There is a loud cheer when the doors open—Pontmercy and Valjean’s daughter step out, grinning, hand in hand. She whispers something in his ear and he laughs. Javert notices the boy’s slight limp, the hitch in his step still present after all these months. The people cheer as Cosette and Pontmercy move toward one of the waiting carriages. Behind them are an older couple—some of Pontmercy’s family, Javert figures—and, last down the steps, Valjean.

Javert pushes forward through the crowd again and waves his hat at Valjean, who seems distant and subdued on what should be such a happy day. It takes several tries, but eventually Valjean notices, just when he is about to climb into one of the carriages. Javert takes some pleasure in watching Valjean’s eyes widen, his face soften, that kind, fleeting smile spread across his lips. Valjean motions for Javert to come over, and so Javert steps expertly over muddy puddles and between carriages to Valjean’s side.

“My sincerest congratulations,” Javert says. Though the streets smell of horses and shit, Valjean’s clothes are scented with plumeria and winter roses, and Javert breathes in the sharp floral smell. “You look—clean,” Javert says, immediately feeling like a fool for saying it.

Valjean laughs, clasps a hand around Javert’s arm. Javert tries not to flinch at the touch. “Thank you,” Valjean says. “As do you.”

There’s a sudden cry from the carriage. “Papa, we must be going!” Cosette’s voice is musical, high and pleasant to the ear.

Valjean’s face flushes. “She is eager,” he says, that soft smile back again. “Would you join me in the carriage? It will save you the walk.”

“I couldn’t impose—”

“Nonsense,” Valjean says. “Give me a moment.”

Javert watches as Valjean pokes his head inside the carriage where Cosette and Pontmercy sit. “The Gillenormands will ride with you two,” he says, “and I shall take the other carriage with Inspector—Monsieur Javert.”

Cosette peers around the open door of the carriage, her eyes wide and bright. Though she is not Valjean’s flesh and blood, it is startling how his peculiarities are reflected in her—the genial smile, curled hand. Javert feels a pang of guilt; he wonders if she resembles her mother. He nods in her direction and she withdraws back into the coach.

“All is well,” Valjean says to Javert after helping the older woman into the carriage. “Come, we will take the empty coach.”

Javert follows behind Valjean and climbs into the carriage after him. Valjean has a little trouble stepping up so high but Javert refrains from reaching out to help him, afraid Valjean might get the wrong idea. Javert slips his hat off and sets it in the seat next to him while he sits across from Valjean.

“This is not our first carriage ride together,” Valjean says once the coach begins to move.

“If only Pontmercy were here to make the reenactment complete,” Javert says, dry. He notices the space between their knees, or the lack thereof. He shifts in his seat, accidentally knocking his foot against Valjean’s. He mutters an apology, but Valjean does not seem to notice.

There is a long silence while the carriage moves and stops for the crowds. Valjean stares out the window at the revelers. A soft rain falls.

“I’m—I am very happy that you decided to join me—us,” Valjean eventually says, without meeting Javert’s eyes.

“I could not turn down such a generous invitation. I hope you will forgive my appearance; I am not in public so much these days.” He runs his fingers over the well-worn cuffs of the greatcoat, the moth-eaten edges of the waistcoat.

“You ask so often for my forgiveness,” Valjean says. “By now you ought to know it is always given.”

“Yes,” Javert says, “right.” He smooths his hair back, tentatively touches the ribbon at the nape of his neck, feels the knot there. Valjean is looking out the window again, his hands clasped together in his lap. “Is something wrong?”

Valjean’s silence is answer enough.

“Valjean, if you are upset—”

“I am not quite upset,” Valjean says. His voice wavers. “I have known this day would be difficult. I did not realize just how difficult.”

Javert tenses at the familiar desperate break in Valjean’s speech. “I do not know how to help you,” he says.

Valjean laughs. “I think I am beyond help. I have told you before, do not worry about me.”

The carriage bobbles over the bumpy streets, their knees grazing against each other. When the bouncing slows, Javert notices that their knees still brush. He cannot bring himself to move his leg away, to shrink back from the touch. Instead he lets the weight remain there, and they are silent for the rest of the journey to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, comfortable.

At the great house in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, there is a feast laid out in the grand dining room, plate upon plate of food, the likes of which Javert has never seen. The table is spread with heaping platters—an herbed roast here, a towering croquembouche there. For the first time in many weeks, Javert feels the pang of hunger in his stomach.

“This is—quite elaborate,” Javert says, a bit overwhelmed. The room itself seems to glitter, decorated all in white and crystal and gold. The air smells of flowers and food—quite pleasant, really, though Javert would not admit to it—and servants flutter here and there, adjusting bouquets, lighting candles, adjusting mirrors.

“The Gillenormands spared no expense,” Valjean says, “though I admit I did not expect so _much_.”

Before Javert can respond, Cosette and Pontmercy are in the room, Cosette giggling all the while. Her fingers remain intertwined with Pontmercy’s even when she embraces Valjean. His face blanches. “Papa,” she says, “isn’t it all so wonderful?”

Valjean nods without looking at her or speaking; Javert notices the way Valjean’s eyes suddenly turn wet when Cosette slips her hand from Pontmercy’s and touches Valjean’s face, her palms on his cheeks. “Oh—you are so good, Papa,” she says. Javert turns away, the moment too intimate to watch.

“Thank you for coming, Monsieur Javert,” Pontmercy says quietly. He extends a hand to Javert—an odd gesture, considering Javert’s behavior on the barricades—and Javert takes it, tentative. “Any guest of Cosette’s is a guest of mine also.”

“I am a guest of her father’s,” Javert says.

“I know you are here for her and not I,” Pontmercy says. Perhaps he is not so much of a dolt after all.

A servant announces that dinner is served, and plates are filled with roast pork and mushroom gravy, buttered asparagus, turbot in hollandaise sauce, Italian artichoke hearts, veal sweetbreads—Javert eats voraciously, each bite more tender and satisfying than the last. Even Valjean, who normally pokes at his food and refuses more than the smallest portion, clears his plate of the baked fennel and winter squash and drinks deeply of the oaky red wine.

There is polite conversation, the Gillenormands asking, “And how do you know Monsieur Fauchelevent?” and Javert stammering for a moment before Valjean says they are old friends. Javert shoves a forkful of turbot into his mouth to avoid saying anything incriminating.

After the delicate puffs of pâte à choux and a brief disagreement over who should eat the last sour cherry—“I couldn’t possibly,” Javert says, and Valjean shakes his head and pushes it onto Javert’s plate, and it bursts tart and sweet between Javert’s teeth—Gillenormand launches into a champagne-fueled sermon on the merits of marriage. Valjean excuses himself when Gillenormand begins to talk of Chenier, though Pontmercy and Cosette do not seem to notice, too wrapped up in Gillenormand’s speech or each other. Gillenormand goes on for what seems like hours, and still Valjean does not return.

 _Of course he’s gone,_ Javert thinks, _I should have guessed_.

He takes it upon himself to find Valjean once Gillenormand stops talking and the string ensemble begins to play music for dancing. While Pontmercy swings Cosette to a rondeau, Javert slips off to the parlor, where a servant stokes the fire. “Excuse me,” Javert says, “have you seen Monsieur—Fauchelevent?” He trips over the name; the syllables are clumsy on his tongue. The name _Valjean_ has come so easy to him all these years.

“In the garden, Monsieur,” the servant says, and Javert nods in thanks before venturing into the courtyard. Though the snow has begun to melt, the night is still cold, and the day’s soft rain has turned into a storm. And yet Valjean is outside, without coat or hat, looking at the calla lilies.

“For heaven’s sake—Valjean—”

Valjean whips around. “You cannot call me that.”

“What are you doing?”

“It is nothing.” Valjean’s hand lingers on one of the leaves.

“You are soaked to the bone.” The rain is cold; Javert feels goosebumps raise on his skin. “You should come inside,” Javert says, crossing the courtyard. “You will get sick.”

“I cannot face them like this,” Valjean says. “Cosette has already forgotten about me—surely you can see that. How she and Marius—”

“It is their wedding day! You are being ridiculous, you—”

Valjean raises a hand. “I do not want to hear you chastise me. I have done it enough myself.”

It takes all of Javert’s restraint not to grab Valjean by the shoulders and shake him. “How could you possibly think she will stop _loving_ you—how could anyone—”

“Javert, please—”

“No, I won’t listen to you feel sorry for yourself anymore!” Javert’s voice grows louder, echoing off the stones and bricks. Valjean tries to hush him but it does no good. “You will still be able to see Cosette, she will still love you and want you, my _God_ , how could she not—you give so much and think so little of yourself, that you might be so easily forgotten—”

“Enough!” Valjean shouts, something fearful in his voice. “I won’t have you lecture me.” A cough seizes him, wracks Valjean’s entire body, and his fingers are still curled around the bell of the flower.

Before he can think to stop himself, Javert is pulling off his greatcoat and wrapping it around Valjean, who is still coughing, and leading him back inside the house, a hand at Valjean’s back. Valjean does not protest, his fingers finding the lily still pinned to Javert’s coat.

Inside, Javert takes the newly-wet coat and leaves Valjean in front of the fire to warm himself. “Stay here,” Javert says, “I will explain why we are leaving.”

Valjean does not look at Javert, but he nods and murmurs a word of thanks.

Javert is surprised to find that Gillenormand has not begun to pontificate again. Instead, the music has stopped, Gillenormand has fallen asleep in one of the chairs in the sitting-room, and servants have begun to clean up the plates from the dinner table. Cosette and Marius are nowhere to be found. “Monsieur,” Javert says to Gillenormand, his voice quiet. Gillenormand does not stir. “Monsieur,” he says again, louder.

Gillenormand awakes with a snort, startled.

“Monsieur, forgive my rudeness—Monsieur Fauchelevent is feeling quite ill, so we shall take our leave.”

Gillenormand gives a queer laugh. “Oh, Monsieur, we thought you two had already gone! Weddings do take their toll on those of us who are not so young.” The old man pats Javert’s hand. “Do take care, Monsieur—Javert, was it?”

“Yes,” Javert says. “Thank you for the evening; your generosity is unmatched.”

And then Gillenormand is asleep again, and Javert fetches Valjean’s overcoat and his own hat. Valjean is holding his hands in front of the fire, shivering slightly. “We will not find a cabriolet this late—we will have to walk.” He holds up the dry overcoat for Valjean and Valjean slips his arms in. “My apartment is only a few minutes’ walk; you will stay there for the night. Do not argue with me.”

“I have no hat,” Valjean says simply. “I do not remember where I’ve put it.” Javert passes his hat to Valjean. “I could not,” Valjean says, but Javert pushes the hat against Valjean’s chest, insistent. Valjean puts the hat on and Javert almost laughs at the sight. Jean Valjean in his hat. It seems too ridiculous to be true.

“We should be going, before the rain becomes even harder,” Javert says. Valjean buttons the coat with clumsy, still-cold fingers. Javert buttons the top button quickly for him. Valjean looks overwhelmed. “It is not that far.”

In the ten minutes or so it takes to get to Javert’s apartment, they are both soaked, and they do not speak. The night has grown dark quickly and the moon is bright and full in the sky. On a better evening, Javert might step outside to watch the stars, but Valjean is coughing again, and the apartment will be cold when they get there, and—oh _God_ —there is no divan to sleep on and the bed is small and Valjean’s clothes are all wet.

 _I have lost my mind_ , Javert thinks upon coming into the apartment. “I shall find you something dry to wear,” Javert says. “The sleeping arrangements—” he begins, but finds he does not know how to finish the sentence.

Valjean stands inside the front door, dripping.

There are a few old nightshirts in the armoire, all stained or torn, but they will have to do. Javert finds the largest one and sets it out for Valjean, along with a thick blanket from the bottom drawer. Though the nightshirt has always been too big for him, Javert fears it may be too small for Valjean, whose shoulders are broader than Javert’s. Still, it is all Javert can offer, so he brings it to Valjean with an apology for its sorry state. “I shall get the bed ready while you—change,” Javert says.

“You do not have to give up your bed for me,” Valjean says. Javert cannot decipher if Valjean is irritated or grateful or upset. “You should not be doing any of this, you should have left me there—”

“I am too tired to argue with you again tonight, Valjean. Leave your wet clothes near the fire. They will be dry by morning.” Javert turns. He spreads layers of blankets over the bed, rearranges the pillows, turns down the sheets. The bed is small but there is room enough for two, and the thought of sharing a bed with Valjean is intoxicating. Through the doorway, Javert catches a glimpse of Valjean slipping his clothes off—the slope of his shoulder, the ropes of scars across his back. Javert feels his stomach turn with some combination of guilt and desire, a need to touch the old hurt parts of Valjean and say, _this is what I did to you, this is what I allowed to happen, I do not expect you to forgive me._ Javert flexes his fingers in the sheets and does not let himself look when Valjean removes his trousers.

And then Valjean is in the bedroom, the nightshirt tight across his chest and arms. Valjean wrings his hands and the manacle scars are visible too, raised and thick around his wrists. Javert cannot keep himself from looking at them, realizing that this is the first time he has ever seen Valjean’s scars. When Valjean steps closer to the lamp on the bedside table, it is easier to see that the length of his forearm is striped with ancient wounds, some thin cuts, some wide and thorned. Javert remembers the lash well, how it felt good and right in his hand, how its crack through the air and into flesh was satisfying because it meant justice was being served. He wonders how many of these wounds he inflicted, wonders if Valjean remembers.

“Where will you sleep?” Valjean says.

“Here,” Javert says, a bit embarrassed. “We will both sleep here.”

Valjean coughs again—whether because of the cold or the sleeping arrangements, Javert cannot tell.

“There are more blankets if you require them. In the armoire,” Javert says. “I need to—I must get out of these clothes, or I will be sick too.”

Valjean touches the blankets. “Yes,” he says, not looking up.

Javert takes a nightshirt from the armoire and changes near the fire, out of Valjean’s sight. The nightshirt is clean and dry against his skin and he takes a moment to stoke the fire, to push his wet hair back off his forehead and untie the ribbon at his neck, to laugh at the absurdity of the flower pinned to the coat, of Valjean in his bed, of a wedding on Shrove Tuesday. It all seems like some strange fever dream, but Valjean is there in the bed when Javert returns to the room, curled into himself and taking up as little space as possible.

It would be so easy to touch Valjean now, but Javert does not let himself. It would be wrong, and he has already given Valjean one unwanted kiss. Instead he tells Valjean goodnight and blows out the lamp before lying in bed opposite Valjean, their backs parallel lines, never touching.

The weight of another person in bed takes some getting used to. In a brief moment of clarity, Javert realizes that he has never had another person in bed with him before, that the last person he slept next to was his mother in a prison cell. That was different, and so many years ago now that he cannot remember anything but the feeling of her body against his, without a blanket, shaking. Now, Valjean is both inches and miles away, too close and not close enough.

Before he closes his eyes, Javert allows himself to turn over, face the wide wall of Valjean’s back, and listen to Valjean breathe. Javert thinks of what it would feel like to follow the map of scars on Valjean’s skin with his fingers, to kiss apologies there and there and there, to take Valjean’s flesh like the sacrament. He draws circles in the sheets with his thumb, the motion like scrubbing teacups, until the pain in his hand numbs him into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the menu at the wedding feast was adapted from [this menu](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordonnance_du_grand_repas_fran%C3%A7ais_au_XIXe_si%C3%A8cle) with the help of olivia, google translate, and my very poor french
> 
> the sour cherry bit is shamelessly lifted from [this poem](http://friggmagazine.com/issuethirtysix/poetry/aptowicz/july.htm)
> 
> happy holidays!
> 
> 12/27/2014--  
> SORRY IF YOU SAW THE VERSION OF THIS WHERE 'GOD' WAS REPLACED WITH 'NICOLAS CAGE' OMFG that's what i get for using stupid extensions on google chrome.


	4. opened up the things i shut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter comes with a trigger warning for discussion of valjean's torture-related trauma. as always, thanks/apologies to everyone i foisted this chapter on while i was writing it. you guys are the best!

Valjean sleeps very little. Javert’s bed is unfamiliar, firm where his bed is soft, and he spends much of the night with his legs pulled up against his chest, arms covering his head. Valjean faces away from Javert but feels him turn in the night and spread his arms out in the space between them. More than once, Javert’s fingers twitch and brush against Valjean’s back. Valjean flinches away.

Since Toulon, he has felt most vulnerable in sleep. He recalls nights woken up by beatings, men plunging their fists into his shoulders and arms and stomach. He was younger then and not afraid to fight back, but sleep had once been a refuge for him, a respite from a hard day’s work, a decompression. In prison, sleep became another weakness, something other men could use against him. It was there he learned to sleep curled like this, arms protecting neck and head, legs protecting stomach and chest, as though returned to the womb.

Now, even though he may sleep without fear of a fist waking him, sleep is still torturous, nigh impossible. Toulon comes back to him there, distorted and wrong and real. He feels lash against skin, he feels blood on his face, he tastes blood in his mouth, he sees blood on the ground and the blood pumps in his chest and that young man’s anger comes back, sets his hands into fists, and he is angry but fearful again, waiting for the trickle of blood down his back.  When Valjean sleeps, everything is old blood. Old wounds made new.

At home, it is not so difficult, dealing with the dreams. He knows now how to wake up shaking and reacquaint himself with reality. At home, he can take stock of the things that he knows to be real—the breeze through the open window. The quilt Cosette made. The Bible on the bedside table. He knows that thinking of Job will calm him, for Job suffered, too, for God, and he knows that on nights when he dreams of the first lashing, the cadence of the words will slow the stuttering of his heart: _There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil._

But there is no Bible here, not that Valjean can see, and when the dreams come, there is no way for him to ground himself. He feels his body quivering, Javert’s fingers against his back again, and he is in Toulon once more, a guard tying him to the post, his skin bare to the lash, muscles tensed in preparation for the pain. He hears the whip slice across the air and then it is biting into his shoulderblades, the small of his back, the curve of his ribs, his spine. He does not cry out until the fourth strike, and then it is not words but noise, something primal that is not a sob or a scream but something like a howl. An animal sound. It breaks from somewhere in his throat and does not stop until he loses count of the strikes.

“Valjean?” someone says, and it only registers in his brain because it is not the number he knows is his name now. There is a hand on his back and the touch sears there like a brand; Valjean scrambles against the touch and is balled into himself and the animal sound is less a sound now than a whimper, and he is reduced to tears beneath the lash and the hand and all he is sure of is his own body, fragile but present.

Somewhere far off, there is a flicker of light—maybe it is the pain bursting behind his eyes, maybe he is finally dying, and there are hands on his shoulders, pulling him up from the post too gently to be real. “Valjean,” someone repeats, and he cannot form words to answer. Would not if he could. He pushes the hands away, covers his face with his palms and feels himself weep.

And then everything is still. No more pain, no more shaking, nothing but his body. He lets his hands fall and he stares at the unfamiliar floor; he twists his fingers in the unfamiliar sheets. He cannot bring himself to look up, even when his name is repeated again.

He remembers. The wedding, the rain, Javert’s bed. Javert. Javert’s hands.

“What can I do?” Javert says. Valjean does not look at him, nor does he answer him. “I never should have—” Javert begins, but does not finish.

Valjean feels a weight next to him on the bed, too close for him to be comfortable, legs against one another. The gentle brush of skin on skin is too much, even with the knowledge that it comes with no bad intent. Valjean recoils from the contact.

They are silent and distant for a while. Valjean repeats the words from Job in his head like a mantra until they no longer have meaning: _He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression._

“Let me help you,” Javert eventually says, “please.”

But Valjean does not know how Javert could help him. If it is even possible. “You cannot,” Valjean says.

“Then—then I will leave you,” Javert says. And he is gone into the other room.

Valjean takes an inventory of what he knows now. He is in Javert’s room and he is shaken but he is safe. He is in clothes that are not his own—not really clothes at all—and they are constricting around his shoulders. His back is wet with sweat, not blood, and the only wounds there are old and sunk deep into his skin. He is shaken but he is safe.

The little apartment suddenly smells of coffee, and Valjean forces himself to stand, to stretch the muscles in his legs that are strained and taut. He feels exposed, in someone else’s clothes in someone else’s house, and when his bare feet hit the cold floor, he thinks of running far off, to never have to face Javert or Cosette or anyone again. He has done that before; he knows how running works. It is this—the standing still—that he is not so sure of.

In the kitchen, Javert is making coffee, and when Valjean steps out, Javert immediately offers him a stack of folded clothes, still warm from resting next to the fire. Valjean realizes they are his clothes from the previous night and takes them gratefully, retreating back into the bedroom to change into the shirt and trousers. It is comforting, being back in his own clothes, with room to breathe.

While changing, the shirt catches on the scars on his wrists, which are raised and rough, even after many years. They are ugly, there is no denying that, and now they feel fresh, cut back open once more. He buttons the cuffs around them to spare himself the sight. His back still blisters from the touch of hand and lash, real and dream. But it is all real.

He recognizes now that it was Javert’s hand on his back, Javert’s hands on his shoulders, Javert calling for him. That was true in Toulon, too.

Valjean does not hold it against him. Things were different then.

He avoids the mirror on his way back into the kitchen.

There are two mugs of coffee set out on the table and Javert is in his shirtsleeves, a candle flickering between the coffee mugs. It is still dark outside, but the moon is bright and with the dim light of the candle, the kitchen takes on the air of a church, the table an altar. He does not sit down, though Javert looks up at him expectantly.

It is difficult to meet Javert’s eyes. He has seen too much. This thing between them has always been complicated, more so since Javert’s fall, but Valjean has never felt such a need to shy away from Javert as he does now. He thinks of how Javert must feel, how horrifying to wake up to the sounds of pain from an unfamiliar body in his bed, and Valjean feels embarrassed once again.

“I thought you might like some coffee; it is better than my tea,” Javert says.

Valjean swallows hard. “Yes,” he says, “alright.”

They have been here twice in the past few days, opposite one another, not quite sure what to say. Javert had touched him then and he had not minded, had not thought anything of it, and he had touched Javert with calloused hands, without fear.

They drink their coffee in silence. It seems inappropriate to make pleasant conversation, and Valjean is not prepared to talk of what has happened. There is concern in Javert’s eyes, though, as if he readies words but does not know how to say them. Valjean knows that feeling well. Still, Valjean cannot relieve Javert of the look on his face, cannot say something to fix what has happened. He does not know how to go about it.

The candle burns.

Javert says, “If you are ready to return home, I will walk with you.”

“I think I would prefer to wait for a cabriolet,” Valjean says. “It is still cold outside.”

“Yes,” Javert says. “That is fine.”

They are silent again. After some time, Valjean says, “Thank you for the coffee.”

Javert nods.

Valjean watches Javert, who runs his finger around the mouth of his coffee mug in lazy circles. Every so often, Javert glances up again, around the candle, to look at Valjean. It stops something in Valjean, makes him look away.

There is so much between them to be said but no way to say it. No words for the things that must be said. It is infuriating. Valjean does not know how to say, _this is not your fault_ , or _I am not upset with you_ , or _I am sorry for this and everything else_. So he drinks the coffee until there is nothing left, and he hopes Javert knows.

Javert asks if he wants to watch the sun rise. Javert says he knows it is cold but the sun will warm things up, and the cabriolets will be out soon. Valjean does not answer. Instead he watches Javert pull on his overcoat and fish a tarnished snuffbox from the pocket. “I will be in the courtyard,” he says, “if you wish to join me.”

Alone in the apartment, Valjean feels the need to remain perfectly still, to not move anything from its set place, to not disturb Javert’s little universe. So he takes it all in from the table in the kitchen—the stacks of clean dishes, the newly-polished boots in the corner, the candlestick with wax dripping down its sides. How much has changed in just a few days.

He has not thought about it much, with Cosette’s marriage looming overhead, but he realizes now that his life is mostly over. There is nothing else to prepare for, save perhaps grandchildren from Cosette. He has been running for so long, and for what? This is new to him—the close quarters with Javert, the living alone. The intimacy and the distance have created a kind of dissonance within him. He does not know what he wants, whether to be by himself or to be with Cosette, whether to apologize for his behavior to expect Javert to apologize for his, whether to stay in the kitchen or to go out and watch the sun come up.

It is maddening—all these small choices that now seem so important, so life-changing. Valjean does not know how to make sense of them or what to decide. By the time he stands, chooses to go out into the courtyard with Javert, it is too late. The moment has passed and the sun is already breaking through the windows. Javert is coming back inside, stuffing the snuffbox back into his pocket, and Valjean feels his heart sink. If he had hoped at reconciliation, at assuring Javert he was not upset with him, he has missed his chance.

“How was the sunrise?” Valjean says, as though he has never seen one before.

Javert shrugs. “The same,” he says. “A bit too quick.”

“Ah,” Valjean says.

“We should try to find a cabriolet for you,” Javert says. “I will ride with you, if you like.”

“I do not want to trouble you with walking back alone,” Valjean says.

“It is no trouble—”

“You have been too kind already.”

Javert shakes his head. “That you should speak of too much kindness,” Javert says under his breath.

Valjean does not acknowledge it. “Is it very cold?”

“No.”

“Then let us go,” Valjean says.

The street is mostly empty, save a few stragglers all marked with grey crosses on their foreheads. “It is Ash Wednesday,” Valjean realizes. “I have missed Mass.”

Javert’s face falls. “Forgive me, Valjean, I did not think of it,” he says, frantic. “We could go now; the church of Saint-Paul is not far—I have not been to Mass in many weeks, I did not think of it at all—”

“It is not your fault,” Valjean says, a hand fluttering to his forehead. “I should have remembered myself.” Valjean laughs to himself. “I have not even thought of what to give up for Lent.”

“Self-effacement,” Javert suggests. “Or abnegation.”

A cabriolet rattles down the street. Javert signals for it and it rolls to a bumpy stop in front of them. “I will consider your suggestions,” Valjean says.

“When shall I see you next?” Javert says. Valjean does not note the desperate sound of his voice, the way he reaches but does not touch.

“You are welcome anytime,” Valjean says. “I do not think I shall be occupied much any more.”

* * *

The house is empty.

Valjean had known this would be the case, that Cosette would be with Pontmercy now, forever, but to come home without her voice in the air is still a shock. She belongs to him now, and the house is Valjean’s alone, only.

He sits on the floor in her bedroom and weeps. For her or for himself, he is not sure, but he weeps until his neck is damp with tears, until his chest heaves and no sound comes out, until he cannot think of anything any longer. She is gone, and he is alone, and he will die soon, and that will be all.

He wonders if they will come get her things from her room or if the Gillenormands have provided even these comforts—the childhood doll still resting on the pillow, ribbons in shades of pink and blue, the little carved animals from their time at the convent. _She will not miss them_ , he thinks. _She has much more now_.

He picks up the crudely carved turtle, painted in fading tones of green, and remembers how he had worked by candlelight to whittle away at the block of wood until it resembled something. This was the second attempt at a turtle—Cosette had so desperately wanted a turtle; he did not know why—and it was better, more the image of a turtle than the first attempt, which had just been a lumpy mound with stumps attached. This one was better, though it was still not perfect, and there were splinters in his thumbs but Cosette was thrilled when she got to paint the shell.

Such a small and simple thing. He remembers her tiny hands closing around the turtle, looking at it as if it were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and how she thanked him and touched it and still played with it, even though she was already too old for toys like that. How she asked for a lion next, and a lamb, because they kept his hands busy. How she never lost one of them even through all their running.

But they are here and she is not, and that is enough to set him weeping again.

At the wedding, she told him that he was good, that he was so good, but he finds it hard to believe. They have always had trouble saying “I love you,” the words have never come easy to them, simple though they are. He hopes Cosette knows that she is everything to him, that this is an irreplaceable loss. And though Javert has said she is not far away, though he has tried to convince himself that things will not be that different, it is impossible to believe that is true. Things are already different.

Valjean’s life has been a series of changes, but certain things have remained constant. He has had Cosette. He has known Javert to be diametrically opposed to his existence. But in so few months, even these basic things have been shifted, his world turned on its head. How is he to accept a life without Cosette, one in which Javert is suddenly his friend and it is as if the past did not occur? Valjean does not begrudge him his past sins, but he cannot rectify their shared past with their shared present. Valjean still bears too many wounds that have not quite healed.

He does not expect Javert to understand. He does not even understand, really. It has been so many years since Toulon, and whatever was between them at the barricades seems to have been forgotten. Somehow, they have fallen into this strange friendship full of tea and coffee and, apparently, shared beds. Valjean would take a kind of comfort in it if it were not all so new and terrifying.

Valjean unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt. These scars have always been a menace—they are too disfiguring not to hide, but the tightness of the cuffs around them is too reminiscent of the manacles themselves. He touches the rough skin there and does not feel much. Javert had to have seen them in the nightshirt; the sleeves were too short and he has still not learned to hide them with his hands.

And yet—if Javert did see them, he made no mention of them, did not gawk or gasp. Was not horrified by the state of his body, broken as it is. Perhaps that comes with having seen Toulon, or perhaps Javert did not notice, or perhaps Javert only thought, _my God, put those things out of my sight_.

Even when he had shaken, even when he had pushed Javert away, Javert offered coffee and warm clothes and the sunrise. Valjean does not understand how Javert can suddenly be the one giving mercy. It does not make sense that their lives should lead to this. But they have, and though Valjean cannot comprehend why, he feels that he has slighted Javert by not apologizing for his behavior, that he has irrevocably turned their new friendship toward the worst.

He rationalizes. Javert must be upset with him. Must see him as pitiful for being unable to stand sharing a bed with someone. Must think Valjean does not ever want to see him again. Must not ever want to see him again. And why should he? Valjean had refused all of Javert’s attempted comforts—only took the coffee out of obligation—and pushed him away.

 _Yes_ , Valjean thinks _, how could he ever forgive me?_

Valjean finds the little turtle again, its back smooth now from years of play and reverent touch. He turns it over in his palm and inspects the faded paint, the turtle’s small face, the crooked smile added at Cosette’s request. Suddenly, there is a prick at his thumb. A splinter—the wood still sharp and giving after so long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why is jean valjean so hard to write
> 
> shout out to vaincs for telling me i left one of my writing notes in the chapter after i published it. why am i allowed on the internet


	5. the implications of diving in too deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter also comes with a trigger warning for torture-related violence. per usual, many thanks to the folks who kept me writing this chapter! it was a bit of a struggle but i'm pretty happy with the product.

Javert has had the luxury of mostly forgetting Toulon. He remembers bits and pieces—the feel of the lash in his hand, the stench, the way his head rushed when he was first put on guard duty. By and large, it was uneventful and monotonous, with long days of menial work.

Of course, he recalls some things quite vividly: Valjean’s release on parole, for one, though he often wonders if he constructed that memory after his time in Montreuil-sur-Mer. He remembers the first man he whipped, tied to the post and bare before him. He remembers the way his hand shook, the way the man braced himself for the lick of the lash. How he did not do it hard enough the first time. He remembers the sound, how the crack of the lash through the air and into skin gave way to the man begging for mercy without words.

He was young then, the son of criminals, and something about striking the shaking man turned his stomach. It could have as easily been him.

“This is what separates you from them,” the guard before him had said, giving over the lash. “Power.”

Eventually it became second nature. He learned to command each strike so it would land precisely. Hit on the thick muscle of the shoulder and there will be blood but less pain. Wrap around to the thin skin of the ribcage and the ache will last for days. Each man an experiment in agony. There must have been hundreds of them.

He cannot remember if he ever struck Valjean. He cannot be sure that he did not.

The sound of Valjean crying out has echoed through his mind since he first heard it. Javert has not been able to shake the image of Valjean balled up against the strikes or the feeling of Valjean pushing his hands away, of recoiling from the lightest touch of their legs against one another. He had wanted to pull Valjean to his chest and tell him that he had not meant it, that he had never wanted to hurt him, but even that would have caused him pain.

 _All I have ever done,_ Javert realizes, _is cause him pain_.

When he comes to this realization on the Friday after their night together, he spends the rest of the day in bed, wrecked. He keeps himself on one side, leaving space for where Valjean would be, and stares at the ceiling and his hands and the wall. Valjean had been there—he has not changed the sheets—and he had not protested, and Javert had thought that something might fall into place, the two of them together like that. He had selfishly thought that sharing the bed might simplify the matter instead of complicating it further.

It was selfish. He has been selfish. He has desired Valjean for himself and he has been selfish.

Javert does not know what to do, how to apologize to Valjean or to fix what has happened. He does not want forgiveness—he is not worthy of that—but he is not sure what he does want. He wants things to be right between them. He would like things to be easy between them, but he is not sure that is possible.

Once again, Javert finds himself undone by Jean Valjean.

The weeks after Cosette’s wedding are hard. He covers the mirror with the nightshirt Valjean wore—he cannot bear to look at himself—and keeps the window shut. It is getting warmer outside, and February turns into March, and he loses count of the days he has gone without seeing Valjean.

Instead of eating, he spends the time thinking of what he wants. What he would like, what would be ideal for this thing between them. Again, he finds it is hard to name, and again, he comes back to the word _need_ over and over. Valjean has been the one constant in his life and Javert realizes that he needs him. After all of this, Javert still needs him.

He remembers the kiss that night in Valjean’s house—how he had spent all evening thinking and yet kissing Valjean had never come to mind. Since then, the idea has scarcely left him. It is shameful, the number of nights he has spent dreaming of Valjean beside him in bed once more, pressed against him this time, their legs tangled. He has never felt such things before, never needed to touch another person the way he needs to touch Valjean.

And yet Valjean seems to have forgotten that Javert ever kissed him. It was desperate and wrong, Javert knows that, but it satisfied that hungry part of him for a moment. He has not felt satisfied since then, and now, to kiss Valjean again would be to hurt him once more, to strike him again. Javert cannot do that.

More than once, Javert curses Valjean for forcing him to live. _How much simpler things would be_ , Javert has thought, _if I were dead_.

He spends the nights sick with want. Need. He makes tea in the evenings until it becomes as instinctive as washing dishes or holding the lash. He makes cup after cup and remembers Valjean across the table, Valjean in the lamplight, Valjean in his bed, Valjean in pain, and he finds his head in his hands at the memories.

He tries to recall Toulon. Tries to bring up the faces of every man he struck. He did not pay attention then—did not learn their names or crimes—and he hit without warning, without caring. They were both so much younger then. Different people.

He wonders if Valjean would know. If anyone would remember who had hurt him, it would be Valjean. If he thinks about it for long enough, Javert can envision Valjean against the post, his head bloody from shaving. And then Javert remembers the sound and he is laid open again, left wishing there were some way to undo everything.

On the Wednesday before Easter, there is a knock at the apartment door. Javert answers it in his shirtsleeves, half-hoping it will be Valjean. He is disappointed when it is the landlady, her smile all too wide.

“Monsieur Javert,” she says, “I have a letter for you.”

He thrusts a hand out for the letter but does not speak.

“Monsieur Fauchelevent dropped it by this morning. He said he did not want to disturb you. I suppose he does not mind me disturbing you, though!” She laughs too loudly and does not give over the letter.

Javert opens the door a little more. “Monsieur Fauchelevent was here?”

“Just for a moment, monsieur,” she says, finally placing the letter in his hand. The envelope is thick, his name scribbled on the front in shaky script.

“Is that all?” he says.

She nods, but then stops again. “Your monthly payment is due. For February.”

He is taken aback. “You have not asked me for rent in—in many months. I have completely forgotten—I must owe so much—” He feels his face flush with embarrassment. How could he forget something so simple?

“You have paid for everything else, monsieur. You only owe the sum for February.”

“I have not paid you anything,” he says. He tries to recall giving the woman money but he cannot remember the last time he paid her. “Are you sure your records are correct?”

“Quite sure,” she says, sounding a bit offended. “You argue about the strangest things, Monsieur Javert. Just the February rent, as soon as you can get it to me.”

“I—I will,” he says. “Good day.”

She wishes him the same before turning back down the hall, shaking her head the whole time.

It does not make sense. Try as he might, he cannot remember the last time he paid the woman. He must have—perhaps he paid in advance, that must have been it. He wonders if his memory is failing him; he concedes that he would not be surprised if it is.

Javert runs his fingertips over the corners of the envelope once more, traces the letters of his name. He eases a finger under the sealed flap, careful not to tear the paper, and removes the letter. He spreads out the pages on the table and reads slowly.

It is a long letter. Valjean’s handwriting is neat and practiced at first, but as it goes on, the page is dotted with splotches of ink and crossed-out words, the straight letters turning into a scrawl. Javert reads it over and over, touching each word and letting them sink in.

Valjean asks for forgiveness. Of course. He apologizes for his silence, for pushing Javert away, and suggests that Javert might be upset with him. _I have been inexcusably rude_ , he says, and Javert almost laughs. That Valjean could be rude! How ridiculous—when Javert had been the one who touched without thinking, who had hurt with his greed.

The letter goes on—Valjean talks of the empty house ( _unbearably quiet without her_ ) and his new life ( _dinner with the Gillenormands on Monday evenings; they do not know the meaning of the word “restraint”_ ) and his plans for the spring ( _I should like to plant strawberries_ ). Javert feels like a voyeur, soaking in all these intimate details of Valjean’s existence. He has always known too much about Valjean, but the feeling is different when the information is offered up willingly.

Valjean circles back to apology again and again, each time inventing a new reason for which Javert might hate him. He blames the stress of the wedding for his behavior, then his old age, then himself. Javert curses himself for making Valjean feel this way and rereads the sentences where his name is written.

In the last paragraph, Valjean asks Javert to come visit. The first time he reads it, Javert’s heart jumps. _I understand if you do not wish to see me again_ , it says, _but I am fond of your company_.

Javert aches. It does not make sense that Valjean should think this way—that he should believe he is the one who has done wrong. Still, it is reassuring to know that Valjean wants to see him again, despite the complications of the kiss and the bed. Valjean suggests Javert come over on Easter Sunday, sometime that evening, perhaps for tea or just to talk. _Yes_ , Javert wants to say, _anytime, anything you want._

The letter is signed _Fauchelevent_ , as if Valjean still lives in fear of Javert discovering him. That makes Javert hurt even more—to think that Valjean still feels the need to hide from him. But that is what they have been doing, hiding. That is what they have become good at. Javert wishes there were some way to assure Valjean that they do not need to hide any longer.

The thrill and the fear of seeing Valjean again race through him. Javert knows Valjean will be twice as apologetic in person as he was in the letter; Javert will have to think of what to say, how to calm him down. And Javert will have to apologize, too, for touching and wanting and needing what is not his.

Javert rereads the letter twice more before setting out paper to compose a response. Yet when he begins to write, everything feels wrong, and he cannot focus on anything except the way the name _Valjean_ looks on the page, the way it feels in his mouth, the way the breath of the syllables makes him want to crumble. The heat in the pit of his stomach is distracting, the cramp between his thighs—he cannot look at the letter, cannot look at the words Valjean has written. His fingers quiver at the buttons of his trousers.

In bed with his hands moving, Javert thinks of Valjean, next to him, near him, bare and not shaking. Thinks of kissing Valjean again, softer, and thinks of Valjean’s mouth opening for him, lips parting, fingers in his hair. Thinks of Valjean’s shoulders beneath his hands, Valjean’s face against his neck, Valjean’s hips between his legs. Thinks of Valjean’s strong arms and broad chest and the muscles in his calves and the scars on his wrists all laid out for him, for the taking, for the touching, and he loses himself with a shudder, sooner than expected, Valjean’s name on his tongue.

And then, more than anything, he feels guilty. Like he has defiled Valjean with the thought. He wants to throw the sheets out like the broken teacup—must he always destroy that which Valjean has touched? He feels too much for Valjean, too deeply, and feels shame for daring to think of Valjean in such a way.

He cannot win. He cannot speak these things but he cannot hold them in, either. All these nights without Valjean have made his need grow even stronger and he feels like he may burst. And now he will see Valjean again in just a few more days and he will have to look Valjean in the eye and pretend he has not done this night after night. Will have to conceal the fact that he has looked at Valjean undressing and craved the sway of Valjean’s back, begged for Valjean’s hands on his body, desired Valjean, wholly.

 _It would be better for Valjean to know_ , Javert thinks. It is easy to think that. It will be another thing to actually tell Valjean what he feels, if he can even put words to the feelings. Then he will have to deal with Valjean’s reaction—Valjean will never want to see him again, probably, or will be disgusted, or will see it as the sin against God that it is.

The solution at once seems simple and endlessly complicated. Tell Valjean and see what comes of it. He cannot make the situation any worse than what it is, he supposes.

He sleeps without sheets, wishing for a body to keep him warm.

* * *

 

On Easter Sunday, Javert is awoken by the sound of church bells. They pound in his ears, loud enough to drown out the metronome of Valjean’s name that has filled his head since he received the letter. It is at once thrilling and terrifying to be overwhelmed like this; Javert welcomes the feeling of drowning.

He spends the morning preparing, for what he is not sure. He looks in the mirror for the first time in weeks and is not surprised by the grey thing that stares back at him. Still, he shaves his face, shapes the sideburns, pulls back his hair. Tries to make himself look desirable—presentable, at least—to Valjean. Funny—the cut on his face has finally healed up, and there is a thin but deep scar, still pink, that follows the curve of his cheek. The skin there is too smooth, unfamiliar under his fingertips. Strange that he is only now beginning to learn this new map of his face.

Javert has not quite figured out what he will say to Valjean. He fumbles with words. He cannot say _love_ or _want_ or even _need—_ those are all too big, too much, and will send Valjean running. If there is one thing Javert knows, it is how Valjean reacts to change: with fear. And he cannot bear to see Valjean afraid again. He will have to say something, though, if not for Valjean, for himself. The weight in his chest is back again, the knot in his stomach, and Javert hopes that telling Valjean whatever there is to tell will relieve some of the pressure.

The hours pass too slowly. He considers going for a walk, but then people will wonder why he is not in church. And there is the courtyard, too, but that brings about the possibility of seeing the landlady again, who will no doubt badger him about the rent once more. So he stays inside, thinks of making tea but finds the caddy empty, and settles for watered-down coffee.

He thinks, words and rewords and eventually gives up on trying to plan out what he will say. Javert decides he will just let it happen. He hopes something that makes sense will come out of his mouth. He is not sure that it will.

As soon as the sun begins to set, Javert fetches his hat and his coat and sets out. In the streets, he keeps his head down until the sky turns purple with nightfall. Only then does he allow himself to find the stars and relax in their certainty. He has not walked this long path to Valjean’s house in many weeks—since the night he kissed Valjean, he figures—and it almost feels unfamiliar. But Javert trusts his feet to take him where he must go, and he does not stray, and no boy with a knife threatens him this time.

At the door he steals one last look at the sky and murmurs a prayer to no one in particular. Just when he raises a hand to knock, the door swings open, and there is Valjean in his shirtsleeves, a bible under his arm.

“I did not even knock,” Javert says dumbly. “Were you waiting for me?”

“I have nothing better to do,” Valjean says, almost smiling. “I was not sure you would come.”

Javert steps in and shuts the door behind him. “And yet you waited. Valjean, you are a wonder.”

Even in the dim lamplight, Javert can see Valjean blush. “In the future, you might consider responding when someone sends a letter,” Valjean says, taking Javert’s hat when he removes it.

Javert notices that Valjean’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows; the scars are visible once more and Javert feels the familiar pang of need in his stomach. “I am not so good with words,” he says, following Valjean into the sitting room. “Perhaps next time you could speak to me instead of personally delivering a letter to my landlady.”

Valjean stokes the fire. “I did not think you would want to see me,” he says as embers fly up out of the wood.

Javert wants to laugh. “Well—you are wrong,” he manages to say, taking a seat on the divan. His words come out harsher than intended.

Valjean turns back toward him. “I have been worrying for a month now that I offended you. I was rude to you.”

“No,” Javert says simply.

“You have been kind and good and I have done nothing but push you away.”

Valjean’s look is sincere, and though he is big and broad, he seems small in this moment, like a guilty child. Javert wants to lift Valjean’s chin, make Valjean look him in the eyes, and assure him that no harm has been done.

Instead, he says, “Do not martyr yourself.”

“I am not,” Valjean says. He pauses. “I do not want you thinking I enjoy hurting you. Or that I am not sorry for it. I did not mean to do you wrong, Javert.”

“You have done me no wrong.” Javert finds himself moving to his feet. “I do not think you are capable of such a thing.”

“I am and I have,” Valjean says, more deliberately this time, with force. “I am asking for your forgiveness.”

“There is nothing to forgive! What are you guilty of? Grief? Silence? I—I have been selfish, Valjean, I have tried to claim you for myself, and I have hurt you.” The words come too fast; Javert stumbles, but he cannot stop himself. “I have been sick for weeks thinking of you in my bed—that awful sound—”

“I am sorry for that, too, I cannot imagine—”

“My God!” Javert exclaims. “You are impossible sometimes. Can you really not see that it was my fault?”

Valjean is silent.

“I could not keep my hands away from you and I made you suffer for it. I know that sound, I knew it in Toulon—I do not want to hear it again. Not from you.” He catches his breath, extends his fingers and closes them into a fist. Resists the urge to touch. “I should not have made you sleep with me. Had I known what it would do to you—I never would have.”

“I refused your help,” Valjean says quietly.

“That is not an offense!” Javert is exasperated. “I have—I have caused you much pain these few months. Our entire lives. I do not expect you to forgive me for all of that.”

“Javert, everything is forgiven, I do not—”

“Please,” Javert says. “Please let me speak.”

Valjean swallows hard. Javert watches the tightening of his jaw, the way he opens and closes his mouth before nodding and glancing up at Javert.

“I do not expect you to forgive me for all the pain I have caused you. But I fear I must cause you more with what I am about to say.” He pauses. Takes a harsh breath in. “I care very deeply about you, Valjean.”

He has said it. There.

Valjean looks at him, bewildered. “And I you,” Valjean says, slow, waiting for a response from Javert.

“You misunderstand me,” Javert says. “Of course, of course you do.”

Valjean looks confused. “Javert—”

Javert scrambles for words. “How can I explain—the night I came here. When you cleaned the wound on my face. Do you remember?” Javert presses a finger to the scar on his cheek.

“Why, yes, but—”

“I acted _most_ inappropriately to you. I should not have—” He cannot bring himself to say the words _kissed you_. “I should not have done what I did, but—you must know that it was not an accident. You must know that I meant it.”

Javert’s throat is suddenly dry. Valjean’s fingers rest lightly on his mouth, as though remembering the phantom pressure of Javert’s lips there.

He keeps going. Ignores the catch in his speech, the prickling feeling at the corners of his eyes. “I do not expect you to feel the same way, and if it upsets you or discomfits you, I will—you will never have to see me again. But I cannot go on any longer with you not knowing. I cannot bear it.” He clasps his hands behind his back and nods. “That is—that is all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/16/2015--holy chipotle. i am really bad at being coherent when responding to comments so i just want to give a big blanket THANK YOU to everyone who has commented on this chapter. i was honestly super nervous about it (especially because of Certain Parts that i do not usually write) so to get such an overwhelmingly positive response is, well, overwhelming!! thank you all so, so much for reading this. you all truly brighten my days <3


	6. and possibly the complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO SORRY FOR BEING CRUEL AND MAKING YOU ALL WAIT FOR THIS. i hope you feel like it was worth the wait. so many thanks to everyone i pestered with this chapter while i was writing it, y'all are the real MVPs.

“Perhaps I should sit down,” Valjean says.

He does not know how to begin to process what Javert has said. Javert gestures at the divan and Valjean sits near the edge, his knees close to giving, and folds his hands in his lap. He cannot look at Javert any longer. He fears his expression may betray his confusion.

“I will—I will leave if you feel—” Javert starts, but Valjean shakes his head.

“No,” Valjean says. “That is not—I don’t know.”

So it was not an accident. All these weeks, Valjean has blamed what happened on Javert’s injury. He has wondered if Javert ever fully recovered from his fall, if he had gone back home too soon, and thought that might have had an effect on Javert’s behavior, too.

“Are you sure?” Valjean says, eventually.

“I would not lie to you,” Javert says. “Surely it is not so unbelievable.”

Valjean finds himself incapable of speech. The idea is impossible to him, that someone might think of him in such a way. He has never wanted or expected romance in his life; he has never longed for it, never felt it was missing. He has known the love of God and Cosette, and that has made him feel full.

To hear such a thing coming from Javert, of all people, is mind-boggling. As if their friendship were not strange enough. But Javert has been different since his fall, maybe _because_ of it, and maybe this is just another side-effect. Still, it seems impossible.

“I don’t understand,” Valjean says. “Why?”

He hears Javert stifle a laugh. “I do not know how to say it,” Javert says. “You are generous and moral, and selfless to a fault. You live without resent. You forgive when you should not.”

The words throb in Valjean’s chest like an ache. He shakes his head again.

“And,” Javert begins again, “you are not—unattractive.” He hears Javert swallow hard.

Valjean resists the urge to roll his sleeves back down over his scars. He feels exposed, open, like a wound too big for a bandage, and something catches in his throat. He draws his fingers across his knuckles, the palm of his hand, his wrist, and feels the knobbed bones, the callouses, the ridged skin. Javert must be willfully ignoring these parts of him.

“I have never heard such a thing,” Valjean says. He steals a look at Javert and his eyes are wide and dark and piercing, staring at the fire.

“It is true,” Javert says, almost sounding desperate. Valjean watches him nod and for an instant, their eyes meet. Javert blinks and the moment is lost.

_But how?_ Valjean wants to say. _Me?_ How is it possible that this man, who has seen the worst parts of him, who has seen him at Toulon and in the sewers and running, always running, could come to such a conclusion? _Generous_ and _moral_ and _selfless_ —the words are unbelievable, coming from Javert. Coming from anyone.

“I cannot explain it,” Javert starts again. “It is beyond comprehension. But so are you.” Valjean looks up again and Javert is looking, too, and this time, Javert does not shy away from the look. “I could not ever be worthy of your reciprocation.”

Valjean is painfully aware of Javert’s hand splayed in the space between them, of his own heart aching in his chest.

Javert says, quieter, “I could not ever be worthy of you,” and Valjean crumbles. He has wept in front of Javert before, that is not so embarrassing anymore, but this makes Valjean break in two. He cannot fathom it—Javert seeing himself as lesser, seeing Valjean as more—and it sets tears running down his cheeks.

He puts a hand down on the divan to steady himself, too close to Javert’s, and their fingers brush. Valjean watches Javert jerk his hand away instinctively, curl his fingers into a fist, and then, slowly, open and upturn his palm once more. “May I?” Javert says, his voice too soft. Valjean glances up at him but Javert is staring at their hands, and Valjean does not know what to say or what Javert is asking, but the urge to say _no no no_ thrums in the blood to his legs, his body ready to run at a second’s notice.

Valjean fights the instinct and instead nods, almost imperceptibly, but Javert must see it because then he is slipping his hand under Valjean’s and rubbing tight circles with his fingers in Valjean’s palm. Valjean almost loses his breath—the action is unbearably gentle, and Javert seems unbothered by the hard callouses and tough skin of his hand. Eventually Javert sweeps his thumb in a long, slow arc from the tip of Valjean’s index finger down to the heel of his hand, stopping just before the scars start, edging along that impassable border.

Javert’s touch is soft and Valjean finds himself curling his fingers around Javert’s hand, touching the crests of Javert’s knuckles, the smooth skin between them. Valjean hears Javert draw in a sharp breath when Valjean’s hand closes around his; Javert’s fingers stop moving for a moment and Valjean feels Javert’s eyes on him once again, tentative.

“Is this alright?” Javert breathes. His fingers are still. “I will stop if—”

“No,” Valjean says, and hopes his tone is warm. “Thank you.”

Javert exhales. There is something comfortable about their hands together like this, Javert unafraid to touch these parts of him. Valjean has spent a lifetime proud of his hands—they are ugly but they are strong and tough, built for lifting carts and digging in the dirt and carrying children. Javert does not avoid the callouses or rough places; he touches with tender reverence, and soon they are both watching the way their fingers move together, slowly.

Valjean has stopped crying and the only sound now is the occasional pop of the fire and their measured breathing. It does not make sense for this not to scare him—indeed, Valjean can feel his pulse beating in his wrists—but he does not fear what Javert will do. Valjean lets himself be touched, lets Javert map the small, safe space of his hand with his fingertips. Javert lingers over the downy white hair on the back of Valjean’s hand, the raised veins that run like roads between his knuckles, the deep lines of his palm, the pad of his thumb.

The movement stills again. Javert is looking at him. Valjean cannot meet his eyes.

“Thank you,” Valjean says once more, because they are the only words he can form at this moment. Their hands are still together, fingers flat against each other, and Valjean relaxes. Javert’s fingers are long, his hand swallows Valjean’s up, but his touch is steady and sweet. Valjean has never known touch like this—touch that is not the prelude to a bruise.

At some point, Javert lifts his hand away and the air comes back into the room.

“I hope I have not made things uncomfortable,” Javert says. “This is all new to me.”

“Yes,” Valjean says, “very new.” His hand is still warm, and he finds himself retracing the paths Javert’s fingers followed.

“Is it—at all possible that you feel the same?” Javert mumbles. “I know it is not likely, but I have hoped for so long now.”

Valjean is struck by the question, by the desperate tone of Javert’s voice. He does not know what to say, or how he feels. Javert had wanted to kiss him and touch him. Willingly. Valjean cannot imagine feeling that way about anyone. He tries to think of himself reaching for Javert the way Cosette has reached for Pontmercy, but the image is wrong, makes him feel sick.

But he did not mind Javert touching his hand. Enjoyed it, even, though the urge to run hummed in his blood. Javert was gentle—that alone is enough to confuse his thinking. Javert, who has never in their lives been gentle, was gentle.

“I do not know, Javert,” Valjean says. “I am sorry.”

“I have disgusted you,” Javert says.

“No. Quite the opposite,” Valjean says. “You are my friend. I do not understand why you feel this way, but I am—it is flattering. But I cannot truthfully say I feel the same. I have never considered it.”

“Please consider it,” Javert says. Asks. “I am more than content being your friend, but please consider it.”

Valjean promises to think on it. Truthfully, the idea strikes fear into him. Letting Javert touch his hand is one thing, but to allow himself to be kissed, to belong to someone else, is another matter entirely. Still, after Javert leaves, Valjean finds himself rubbing circles into his palm like Javert had. His fingers are rougher than Javert’s, but if he closes his eyes, it is easy enough to pretend it is Javert touching each fingertip, each knuckle, each vein.

Alone in bed, the candles flickering, Valjean stares at his hand. This gnarled thing—Javert had touched it like it was something precious. Javert said he had desired him. Had meant to kiss him. That he was not unattractive. Valjean has not looked in the mirror in many days, but he cannot believe that to be true. The scars, the brand, the slight limp—these outward manifestations of his sin have disfigured him. Marked him. And yet they do not seem to matter to Javert.

He does not deserve to be thought of in such a way. To be touched so gently. But Javert had said _he_ was the undeserving one. Thinking of it makes Valjean’s throat catch again.

Valjean finds the bible on the bedside table. Ordinarily, he would open it to Job, but this is a different situation, requiring different words, and he does not know where to turn. Is it wrong for a man to think of him in such a way? Would God allow it if it were not for a reason? Should he have enjoyed being touched? Should he be ashamed for wanting it again? These are questions Valjean does not know the answers to, does not know the verses for.

As he falls asleep, Valjean prays for guidance, for perspective, and for forgiveness.

* * *

 

In April, the air is consistently balmy and the earth consistently green. Valjean takes long walks now, just after sunrise, to feel the ground beneath his feet and warmth on his shoulders. On some mornings, he walks to see Cosette. The walk is long, but it is rewarding enough to be able to see her on days Pontmercy is working.

Cosette’s first act of business as Pontmercy’s wife was to convert the large empty plot behind the Gillenormand house to a garden, and so Lent was spent planning which rows would be filled with root plants and which would require poles for planting tomatoes and peas. They spent long hours together under the sun, digging their hands into the dark wet earth to prepare the ground for planting, and today, finally, it is time to sow the seeds.

Cosette is already in the garden when Valjean arrives. She has set out hand tools and packets of seeds on the small table near the back door, and she stands when he steps out into the sun. “Papa!” she cries, wiping her dirty hands on the apron at her waist. She moves to embrace him, but hesitates—her palms still dirty, her brow damp with perspiration. He pats her arm instead.

“You have already started working,” he says. One whole row has already been planted.

“I was anxious to begin!” She laughs—a resonant, throaty sound—and gives her kind smile. “Do not fret, Papa, there is still plenty of planting to be done.”

Cosette directs him to a packet of onion seeds and the row next to hers. They work opposite one another with trowels and watering cans, silent except for the occasional comment on the weather or the dirt or how bountiful the garden will be in the summer.

Valjean enjoys this kind of labor, specifically the feeling of using his hands. It is satisfying to pat earth around seeds with his fingers, to watch his nails dirty with each seed planted. The repetition is soothing and easy to focus on, clears his mind. His thoughts wander, inevitably, to Javert. Since they touched, it has been hard to think of much else. He wonders if Javert would find him unattractive like this, sweating and covered in soil—though, since Javert has seen him in Toulon and the barricade and the sewer, perhaps it would not be such a strange sight.

He almost laughs at the idea of someone seeing him in such a way. How odd a thing. Javert’s admission still puzzles Valjean—this man who knows his crimes, knows his sins and his lies, knows how he has run his entire life, has come to care for him. Valjean can only justify it as an act of pity.

“You are quiet today, Papa,” Cosette says, pressing a seed into the ground. “Is something on your mind?”

Her voice shakes him from his thoughts. “Oh, no,” he says, “I am content to enjoy the sun and your company.”

She smiles. She has always smiled generously, brightly. She scoops dirt over the seed, pushes it down with the trowel. “Do tell me if your knees or back begin to trouble you. And there is water inside the house, should you need it.”

“I am fine,” he says, and digs his hands into the earth once again. The soil is cool between his fingers, familiar, and there is something gratifying about being so close to God’s creations in this way. Valjean feels as though his mind has not stopped racing since Javert spoke to him on Easter, but this stills his thoughts. Allows him to breathe.

“It is nice to have you here,” Cosette says. “When Marius is out, the house can be awfully quiet.”

Valjean does not mention how unbearably empty his own house has felt without her. “There is nothing I would rather do,” he assures her.

She is silent again, and when Valjean looks up at her, there is a strange look on her face. “Perhaps there is something on _your_ mind?” he says.

“Oh! It is nothing.”

“You do not have to hide things from me, Cosette.”

She sighs. “Marius is—I believe he is lonely. There is only so much I can do. He misses his friends—dreams of them, sometimes—and I do not know how to help him. He is not used to being so alone.”

“Ah,” Valjean says. He wets his lips. Remembers the boy near-dead in his arms. All those dead boys at the barricade. His back aches. “Some things we do not get used to,” he says.

Cosette looks at him. “I do not want him to feel alone, Papa. I should like to be enough for him.”

“A noble pursuit,” Valjean says. “Surely he knows you are trying.”

“Yes. And he is not unkind to me, but he is quiet. I only wish I could do more for him. He does not like to speak of it, you know. All his friends…” Her voice trails off.

It is peculiar, having such a conversation with Cosette. He never would have imagined it, before. But things are changing, Valjean realizes, for Cosette and for him, too. She fixes the ribbon tied under her chin and pours water onto the last seed in her row.

“That should do,” she says, her voice wavering a bit. “Perhaps some water for the two of us, then?”

Valjean nods, straightens himself from his bent position on the ground. There is a twinge in his back that threatens to buckle him once more, and he winces against the pain. “You will have to help me up,” he manages—even speaking is suddenly straining. Cosette is at his side in a moment, knelt next to him, one small dirty hand at his forearm and another against his shoulderblade, steady. His skin crawls beneath her delicate fingers.

Now, with dirt smudged across her nose, she resembles even more the little girl bought from an innkeeper. He had never imagined that one day she might grow up. It is hard seeing her like this, so distraught over Pontmercy and so helpless. At once, Valjean feels guilty and selfish and full of love for her. He cannot connect the feelings to anything specific, cannot tease out their sources in this moment, but he lets them settle in the pit of his stomach as Cosette helps him to his feet.

Once, he had carried a heavy bucket through the woods for her. And now he is unable to stand without her assistance. He does not know what to make of that.

“Cosette,” he finally says, “you have always been the sun to me. You have always been enough.” The words are clumsy, but they are true, and a smile spreads across Cosette’s face as they step into the shade.

“There, now,” she says, and pats Valjean’s arm. She steps back and looks at him, his stained shirtsleeves, and he wonders if she could feel the ridges on his back beneath the thin fabric. If she has questions, she does not ask them, and instead laughs her musical laugh. “You look silly in that hat, Papa. But it suits you.”

She reaches out and adjusts the brim of the hat on his head so it is straight. There is so much between them, so much left to be said. He has not told her of his history or Pontmercy or Javert or Fantine, and the thoughts gnaw at him, begging to be spoken. She deserves to know, he thinks, but she cannot. It is selfish of him, he knows, to keep such things from her for fear of losing her love. But he has already lost so much of her, and he cannot fathom losing the garden and her laugh and her hands on his arm.

Inside, Cosette cleans her hands in the basin in the kitchen and fetches cups of water for the both of them. While they drink, she talks, mostly about Pontmercy and the house. Her voice is pleasant, soothing to listen to, and Valjean relaxes and lets her speak. The water is refreshing, too, and even after drinking just a little, the strain in his muscles eases.

What he would give to have this every day! Something as simple as working in the garden with Cosette. He has not taken his years with her for granted, but bearing the pain of losing her is harder than he ever imagined. Javert would certainly say that he has not really lost her, and Valjean supposes he is right, given that they are planting seeds together now. But it is not quite the same, and though the walk to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire is enjoyable, it is long.

On days like this, Valjean becomes more aware of his age. The twinge in his back, the tight muscles needing to be stretched. He is old—he feels like he has always been old—and he is losing his strength. For so long, that was all he had. Before God or Cosette, he had his body, and he has put faith in it all these years. But it occurs to him now, with his knees in the dirt, that he will lose his body, too. It is broken and it is battered and it is marked, but it is his, and it has served him well.

He buries his hands beneath the soil. Closes his eyes and breathes. It is not right to think of such things—to think of what he has lost, what he will lose, when he has so much. Even if he has lost Cosette, he still has today with her. Even if he will lose his body, he still has his hands.


	7. i put on the brave face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the wait for this chapter! apologies for the truly bullshit policery within. my most sincere thanks to everyone who read bits and pieces of this while i was writing it and assured me that yes, it is okay to be super vague about the goings-on at the prefecture.

For a week after Easter, Javert thinks of nothing but Valjean’s hand in his, how good and right it had felt, and how Valjean had not flinched away from his fingers. Valjean’s palms were tough and calloused but it was satisfying to memorize each inch of them. Javert had felt Valjean’s breath quicken and then slow, had watched his chest rise and fall in the open V of his shirt, and had been desperate to touch more of him. He did not do it. Could not, for Valjean’s sake.

He wonders if the thoughts have plagued Valjean, too—if he has also wished that their fingers had intertwined, clasped together, or that Javert had let his touch wander just a bit further, to brush over the scars and smooth them with his thumb. Certainly they have not. Javert chastises himself for even thinking of such a thing. Still, Valjean had said he would consider Javert’s affections—out of courtesy, no doubt, and little else—and Javert lets himself hold on to that small glimmer of possibility.

Tomorrow Javert returns to the police prefecture **.** It has been many months, too many, and he wonders if his desk has been reassigned to someone else, or if they have forgotten him, if the unsolved cases have been sorted out, or if the entire precinct has fallen into disarray in his absence. It is pleasant to be overwhelmed by these thoughts instead of Valjean, for once, and the urge to work again burns deep in his bones. No field work for a while, that is certain, and that will take getting used to, but it will be refreshing to be useful once more.

Javert has not thought of how he will explain his leave. Chabouillet knows, blessedly, about the melancholy and the months spent trying to passively end his life once more. He had been strangely understanding, had said this sort of thing happened sometimes, and had not berated him about his absence. But he cannot be sure about the others—Commissaire Michaud, especially—if they have been made aware of the details. He supposes he will say he fell ill, which is not entirely untrue, or that the stress of the job and the rebellion had been wearing on him, or something. With time, he supposes, the excuses will come easier.

Before bed, he washes his hair and thinks of Valjean. Probably he will be happy to hear that Javert has gone back to work—no doubt Valjean has grown tired of Javert making excuses to see him and of having to care for Javert as though he were a sick child. Javert reminds himself that it will be nice to be busy once again, to make use of his hands and his mind for something more productive than pining over Valjean.

He works his fingers through knots and tangles and is pleased at the slight pain on his scalp when he pulls too hard. It is good to feel, and he has not felt in so long, and he silently thanks God or Valjean—the difference is minuscule—for making him feel again **.** It has been almost a year now since the river, give or take a month, and the urge to let himself waste away is mostly gone. He is still too thin and his skin is still grey, but he is doing better, he is sure of that. Valjean might even be proud of him.

Javert lets himself smile at that. Progress. God, what a strange thing, that Valjean should no longer vex him the way he used to, that he should enjoy Valjean’s presence, that he should spend nights thinking of Valjean in his bed once more. It must all mean something.

_Perhaps I have finally gone mad_ , Javert thinks, rinsing his hair. The thought does not bother him so much.

 

* * *

 

On his walk to the prefecture in the morning, Javert avoids the river, just in case. He does not expect to suddenly become overwhelmed with the urge to throw himself in once more, but he does not want to tempt fate. Instead, he takes the longer route to the prefecture and savors it, feeling Paris warm beneath his feet, full of possibilities.

His return to work is not as quiet as he had hoped—the men there seem almost excited to see him, and they greet him with smiles and handshakes and kind words. Even timid Blanchet, who had all but melted when they had been partnered together for a months-long investigation, claps a hand on his shoulder and welcomes him back.

The chair is still uncomfortable, the tall stacks of files remain undisturbed, and the papers scattered across the desk are still disorganized. It is a bit like returning home. He relaxes into the chair as much as he can and delves back into the notes. All these old cases still unsolved get the gears in his brain turning, and it is easy to slip back into his old work habits. Read and reread and reread, uncover the inconsistencies, pinpoint what is missing and then figure out how to find it.

There is comfort in becoming machinelike once again. This is what he knows how to do, this is what he has always been good at, and it is a reprieve from the thoughts of Valjean that have plagued him. By lunch, he has gone through three thick files and filled them with new notes. The commissaire will be satisfied, he hopes, and perhaps soon he will be back on the streets again, getting his hands on evidence and bringing in criminals like he used to.

At the bottom of a full drawer, Javert finds a fat file stuffed with too many papers. He knows what it is before he opens it, and he knows he should not open it, but he does so anyway. The documents are not quite official; all the notes are in his own hand. His fingers tremble over the list of names on the first page: _Valjean, le Cric, Madeleine_. He cannot bring himself to add _Fauchelevent_ to the list.

His life’s work. All this information on Valjean stuffed into a drawer. On long nights, he would come back to this, to analyze the information and look for more answers where there were none. So many years condensed into a pile of papers, and for what? The things he has learned in the past few months with Valjean dwarf everything in the file. 24601, 9430—the numbers are meaningless now.

The feeling in Javert’s stomach is not unlike that which he felt on that night at the Seine. Sick and conflicted and confused. He could arrest Valjean today, if he wanted to. Could send him back to Toulon and let him die there.

The image of Valjean helpless and manacled again startles Javert. Valjean would not protest, either, Javert knows this—Valjean probably thinks he deserves it, probably thanks God every day that he is not back there. Javert closes his eyes and tries to think of something more pleasant. Their hands. He cannot do that to Valjean, not after everything that has happened since the river.

Javert turns through the pages in the file. Arrest records, a long list of escape attempts, jottings from a conversation with an old innkeeper. Maps of Paris, a thick circle drawn around the Gorbeau house. Nothing about the barricade—God knows where those notes are, probably at the bottom of the Seine. He can fill in so many of these gaps. Does not know if he should.

No. He cannot. It would be wrong. He is sure of that now.

He closes the file and stares at it on his desk. At one time, this had seemed like everything to him, like the only thing worth working for. But presently, it is worthless. He knows too much.

It is perplexing to him that Valjean, this man he has spent his life learning, now seems so new. Javert supposes Valjean has changed, or he has changed—things are different now, that is certain, and he bites his lip to keep from laughing when he thinks of how eager he had been to hold Valjean’s hand just days ago. A younger version of himself would call him mad.

Even after so many weeks, Javert cannot be sure how his disdain for Valjean turned to something sweeter. He blames the river, he blames himself, he blames God. It perplexes him. But Valjean has always perplexed him.

When there is a knock at the door, Javert is quick to shove the file back into the drawer. “Come in,” he says, straightening the other papers and trying to look productive.

Javert rises to his feet upon seeing that it is Michaud. “Monsieur le commissaire,” Javert says.

“Oh, sit, Javert,” Michaud says with a wave of his hand, “don’t be ridiculous.”

He sits again and notices the stack of papers under Michaud’s arm. “It is good to see you,” Javert says.

Michaud chuckles, sets the papers on Javert’s desk. “Once you look at these, you may think otherwise.”

Javert absentmindedly thumbs through the papers. Case notes, mostly—accounts from victims here and there, descriptions of bits of evidence scrawled on stray scraps. “What is all this?”

“In your absence, Blanchet filled your position,” Michaud begins, and Javert huffs.

“It is a wonder Paris has not ceased to exist,” Javert mutters.

“No one else would do it,” Michaud says, a bit helplessly, “so we are quite in his debt.”

“Is that meant to reassure me?”

Michaud ignores Javert’s skeptical look. “He did an admirable job—as admirable as we could hope for, given the circumstances. But, as you likely remember, Blanchet’s powers of deduction—they leave something to be desired, shall we say?”

Javert glances over the notes again. They are totally disorganized; there is no discernible train of thought in Blanchet’s conduction of the various investigations. “They leave quite a lot to be desired, I’d say.”

“Having spoken to Gisquet, we agreed that the best course of action was for you to stick to desk work for some time.” Michaud sighs. “Conveniently, Blanchet has given you plenty to work with. His investigations were thorough—perhaps too thorough—so you can cull them down to just what is necessary and give us the best course of action to move forward. You know how this works, Javert, this is nothing special.”

“This will not take me long. A week, at most. What then?”

“That is only the notes from July,” Michaud almost laughs.

Javert audibly groans.

“Come now, it will not be so bad.” Michaud leans in over Javert’s desk. “I know you would like to be back in the field immediately, but you must understand Gisquet’s reservation. That note of yours was quite controversial.”

“Ah,” Javert says. He curses his past self, his insolence. In the months since June, he has almost forgotten about the note, scribbled at the station in a fit of foolishness. He had not been in his right mind, and he supposes he has hoped the note would be ignored or discarded in the wake of his situation. Still, it would not be right—actions have consequences, he reminds himself, and he will have to deal with the repercussions.

“Is it true you jumped?” Michaud says. “Someone said you jumped, but the city was a mess with that little rebellion—I do not know what to believe. The word here was you fell, or had been pushed. People do not really survive falling into the Seine, so you must be quite lucky.”

Javert’s mouth gapes. He cannot say that he jumped—what will Michaud think of him then?—but he cannot lie and say that he fell. It is annoying enough when Valjean says it; he cannot fathom the words coming out of his own mouth. He chooses to evade the question. “Someone pulled me out of the river. I cannot swim.”

“And you have been, what, recovering all this time?”

“That is correct.”

Michaud eyes him. Javert feels as if he is now a suspect to be interrogated, as if he is the criminal. Guilt pangs in his stomach. “Ah, I suppose I should not ask so many questions.” Michaud sits back in the chair. “It is your first day back.”

Tension lifts from Javert’s shoulders. “There were complications,” Javert says. “I was ill.”

“I cannot very well fault you for that, can I?” Michaud smiles. “Begin with Blanchet’s notes. I shall check on your progress tomorrow.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

Michaud stands and nods at Javert on his way out of the office. After he leaves, Javert begins to sort through Blanchet’s notes. The process is mind-numbing, Blanchet’s handwriting indecipherable in places. Still, it is work, and by the end of the day he has the papers sorted into neat stacks corresponding to different cases. He can wait to analyze them tomorrow.

For now, he returns to the file in the drawer. Javert does not know what to do with it now. He cannot simply give over the file to Michaud but he cannot keep it, either, at least not here. The thought of burning it passes through his mind, but it would be painful to watch all that work go up in flames.

But he cannot keep it. Not anymore, not with whatever is between he and Valjean now. It is too much information for him to have.

An idea strikes him. Valjean has spoken little of his history, of his life before Toulon, and Javert cannot be sure whether Valjean has forgotten it or simply chooses not to remember it. But it is all here, as much as anyone other than Valjean could know, in the file. He thinks of giving it to Valjean. He cannot be sure Valjean will even accept it, or that Valjean himself will not burn it, but it will not matter then. At least it will not be in his hands any longer. Maybe then he will be able to move forward.

He tucks the thick file under his arm before he leaves the station and only just resists the urge to take it straight to Valjean. There is work to be done at home, rent to pay, and he will have to go through the file one last time to remove any sensitive information from the prefecture.

At home he sets out all the pages on the table and soaks them in once more. How odd to view his whole life like this. He cannot look at the pages for too long without feeling overwhelmed with shame—it is easy to tell himself that he was irreproachable, that he was only doing his duty, but it is another thing to believe it.

Funny how he can map out his whole life based on Valjean’s. He has always been a step behind and now he feels like he has gone too far, taken one too many steps. How he wishes he could undo all of this. Wishes he could take back the years spent tormenting Valjean. It has been too much to watch Valjean shake because of his touch. Javert has not forgotten the sound of Valjean in his bed, the image of Valjean trying to protect himself, the knowledge that he had caused it all, everything.

Javert reads through about two pages before the sick feeling rises in his stomach again. Valjean’s crimes are outlined in someone else’s thick handwriting—later, he recognizes the unsure letters of his own young hand detailing one of Valjean’s escape attempts. Seeing that makes him stack up all the pages again and look away. If there is any sensitive information in the papers, Valjean will not use it.

Instead he tries to divert his focus to something else. Javert remembers the rent needs to be paid, so he scrapes together a pile of gold and silver francs, enough for March and April, and stuffs them into a thick envelope. When he makes his way to the landlady’s apartment, her drunk husband opens the door with a grunt. Javert waves the envelope at him, hopes it will grant him safe passage, and steps inside.

She is standing over the stove stirring a pot of what smells like onion soup and Javert’s stomach grumbles at the scent. “Madame,” he says quietly. The coins in the envelope jingle.

“Monsieur Javert!” she says. “A pleasant surprise.”

He holds up the envelope. “This month and last month’s rent.”

She suddenly looks perplexed. “But, monsieur, you’ve already paid. Have you forgotten?”

Javert shakes his head. Surely his memory has not gotten _that_ bad. “I am sure I have not, madame, I would remember seeing you.”

“The envelope was slipped under the door. I’ve already put it in the books; you are paid through May.”

“I—” Javert stammers, “I have done no such thing!”

She sets the spoon down across the pot with an irritated thwack. “Perhaps you have an anonymous benefactor, then. Monsieur, I do not care who pays the rent so long as it is paid, and I assure you, it is paid.”

He stares at her, bewildered. But then it hits him. An anonymous benefactor. Of course.

It is all he can do to shove the envelope back into his pocket, mutter his thanks to the landlady, and retrieve the file from his apartment before rushing out to the street for a cab.

And then he is pounding on the door of Valjean’s house and it takes restraint not to yell his name. Of course, it all makes sense, of course—those months after the Seine when he was too sick to leave his bed, much less worry about rent. That he had forgotten to pay the February rent when that month had been rocked with Cosette’s wedding and the night in Valjean’s front hallway on the floor. _He is too good_ , Javert thinks, _too good for me or anyone_.

Valjean opens the door and Javert feels struck. A familiar urge to touch him, to kiss him, rises in Javert’s chest and he buries a fist in his pocket around the envelope, clamps his other hand on the file under his arm.

“Javert,” Valjean says, “do come in, I’ve just put on some tea.”

But Javert’s legs feel stiff, too hard to move. He touches the seal of the envelope in his pocket before withdrawing it and pressing it hard against Valjean’s chest. He allows himself this touch, just a brush of the thumb over layers of waistcoat and shirt. “I owe you this,” Javert says. “Much more than this, but this to start.”

Valjean takes the envelope, a reluctant look on his face. “You do not owe me anything, Javert, I am—”

“Do not start that. Please.” He tries to swallow down the desperate hitch in his voice. “You have been paying my rent all this time.”

Valjean licks his lips and the sight makes Javert want to collapse. “Will you at least come inside before you scold me?”

Javert implores his legs to walk, his knees to bend, to not trip over the threshold this time. He watches Valjean’s movements, how the slightest limp is visible when he faces away from Javert, how he holds the envelope against his chest like it is something valuable. Javert feels hungry for him, for skin on skin.

Inside, Valjean sets the envelope on the table before pouring hot cups of tea for both of them. Javert watches him drink; he avoids looking at the envelope and at Javert. Javert keeps the file folded in his lap—Valjean has either not seen it or simply chosen not to mention it. After several long sips, Valjean picks up the envelope. “I cannot take this,” he says.

“You will take it,” Javert says. “How long have you been doing this? Since June?”

Valjean is silent.

“Since June, then.”

“The last thing you needed was to be evicted.” Valjean turns the envelope over in his hands a few times before pushing it across the table to Javert. “I will not take it.”

Javert wants to call him a fool, wants to curse him for having the audacity to pull him from the river and then pay his rent. _If you had only let me die_ , Javert thinks, but then cannot finish the thought. Strange how in the past few weeks he has come to not dread waking up, strange how these emotions have not destroyed him. Or perhaps they have destroyed him and he simply does not mind.

“Why do you do these things?” Javert eventually says. Valjean looks up. “You save my life, you pay my rent, you keep me in your house for a week, you treat me like—like none of it matters.” His fingers brush over the file in his lap.

Valjean shrugs. “It seemed the right thing to do,” he says. “I apologize if I have offended you.”

“No,” Javert says, “no, you are always apologizing when you should not be! This is all too kind, you are too kind. I do not deserve it.”

Valjean shakes his head. “No one is undeserving of kindness, Javert.”

“Except yourself?” Javert says it before he can stop himself. Valjean flinches; Javert has cut deep.

“That is different,” Valjean says.

“Only in that you deserve more kindness than anyone.”

“Don’t say that,” Valjean says, suddenly sounding tired, “please.”

“It is true whether I say it or not.”

Valjean finishes his tea and shakes his head again. “I will not take the money. I only did what needed to be done.”

There is no use in arguing with him. Javert sighs. “I do not understand you.”

“Your tea’s going cold,” Valjean says.

Javert ignores him. “I have something else for you,” he begins, “and this, you _will_ take.” He draws the file from under the table and sets it between them. “I cannot keep this any longer but I cannot bear to burn it. Do with it what you will.”

Valjean eyes the file, his fingers hovering just above it. “What is this?” Even beneath the coat, Javert can see that his muscles are tense; there is something fearful in the scorched-earth color of his eyes.

“Your file,” Javert says. “Everything I knew about you.”

Javert nudges the file a little closer to Valjean, who is still staring at it. “I—I don’t want it,” Valjean says. “That is all behind me now.”

“And behind me as well. So you must understand why I cannot keep it.”

“Then burn it. I cannot have it here. If Cosette were to see—she would be ruined.” Valjean’s hands shake. He presses a fingertip to the file.

“Wait—she still does not know?” Javert is momentarily incredulous. “Valjean, why?”

“I cannot imagine what she would think of me and how it would hurt her.” He tentatively opens the file to a random page—the details of his imprisonment at Toulon. “You do not understand.”

“You are a good man,” Javert says, helpless. “You are the only one who does not see that.”

Valjean laughs and holds up the page, turns it to face Javert. Points at his name, the dates of his escape attempts, the specifics of his punishments. “This means I am a good man? In prison for nineteen years? How?”

“You were trying to feed your family.”

“And I was not even able to do that.” He turns through the pages. Javert watches his lips twist into something pained. His fingers quiver at the map to the Gorbeau house; he puts a hand to his mouth on the page about Fantine’s release.

Javert closes his eyes and swallows hard. He had not realized this would be such a mistake. At once, he wants to ask Valjean for forgiveness and knows it would be given too freely. Whatever words might solve the problem escape him, and so he does the only thing that comes naturally to him anymore and touches Valjean’s fingers with his own.

The air leaves the room. Valjean’s hand on his mouth slowly drops to the table. Javert hears Valjean’s breath catch.

“Does this feel alright?” Javert’s fingers drift across Valjean’s knuckles, over his thumbnail.

Valjean gives a small nod. “Yes,” he breathes.

Javert scoots his chair a bit closer to the table and turns Valjean’s hand so his palm is face-up. With his fingers at the center of his hand, Javert can feel Valjean’s pulse quicken. “Do you—like this?” he ventures. He lets his thumb drift over the heel of Valjean’s hand, waiting for answer before moving any further.

The muscles in Valjean’s neck move when he swallows. “Yes,” Valjean says, and his voice is quiet.

Feeling daring and indebted, Javert gently lifts Valjean’s hand, just slightly, before bending a little and pressing his lips to the pad of Valjean’s thumb. Valjean’s other fingers twitch against Javert’s face when he leaves a soft kiss there and on the side of his index finger. Valjean lets out a soft breath and when Javert looks at him, his eyes are closed. Javert turns Valjean’s hand again and brings Valjean’s knuckles to his lips. He kisses each one, happy to linger on every inch of skin.

“Javert,” Valjean eventually murmurs. It is a gift to hear Valjean say his name this way and he holds onto it, memorizes the way Valjean stumbles over the second syllable.

Javert lifts his head and clasps Valjean’s hand in his, returning it back to the table. “You are a good man,” Javert says, “even if you do not believe it.”

“I cannot,” Valjean says. “All these papers are evidence that I am not.”

“Valjean,” Javert says, “I have been wrong about many aspects of you. But of this, I am sure I am correct.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am the worst at responding to comments but rest assured that i read them and will reply to them EVENTUALLY even if it is weeks later. y'all are too good to me. xoxo.


	8. that darkness at my back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uuuuuuugghhhhhh i am so sorry this chapter took so long to get posted and is so short. i haven't been 100% satisfied with this chapter or the last one i posted BUT i can assure you that the uneventfulness of these two chapters will be redeemed in the next couple of chapters. trust me on this.

Valjean is growing accustomed to the feeling of his hand in Javert’s. It is hard to ignore the file still open between them, but Javert’s fingers slipping into his palm again are a fine distraction, and when Javert presses his lips to Valjean’s knuckles, he feels at once unsteady and calm and comforted.

He cannot make sense of it—how Javert can bring such a thing like this file and dredge up all these memories and then leave him unable to breathe with Javert’s mouth on the rough parts of his hand. Valjean closes his eyes and lets Javert’s lips move over each knuckle without protest. He feels his fingers gentle against that pink scar on Javert’s cheek.

Javert calls him a good man when he finally lifts his head. It is impossible to believe such a thing when the file is spread out on the table, proving otherwise. Javert does not let go; their hands remain clasped on top of the file, over the page marking Valjean’s sentence at Toulon.

He likes this. This sensation of hand in hand, of lips on skin. Javert’s fingers flex and squeeze into Valjean’s palm, Javert’s thumb moving, spreading out over the back of Valjean’s hand. He watches Javert move along the edge of his wrist, the cuff of his shirt—the skin is most sensitive there before it turns to scar tissue, and Valjean hopes Javert does not notice the quiver of his breath.

Javert watches him. Valjean is not sure what Javert is expecting, or why he brought the file or why he is holding his hand again. The file is a strange gift, stranger than Javert’s insistence that Valjean take the envelope full of money, and Valjean cannot determine what Javert was trying to accomplish by bringing it.

Valjean says, eventually, “Why?” That is the only word he can conjure. Javert looks perplexed, so Valjean reluctantly slips his hand out from Javert’s and gestures at the little mess on the table—the file, the envelope.

Javert picks up the envelope again, opens it with his fingertip. He drops the coins into his palm and stacks them on the table by denomination. “Because I owe you,” he says simply. He gathers the spread-out papers and quickly puts them back in order before returning them to the file.

“And that?” He wants to tell Javert to keep it away from him, but then—well, he supposes this was what was always going to happen. That the past would catch up with him. He had not expected it to come about this way.

“I had thought—” Javert begins, but catches himself before continuing. He taps the file with his index finger. “I was foolish to think you would want this.” He glances at Valjean and back to the file, unsure of what movement to make. “I—I have put all this behind me,” he says, the words slow and deliberate. “I am ready to move on.”

He is being sincere, Valjean can tell that—Javert has never been much of a liar. Nevertheless, this is unexpected to hear, that Javert would leave their pasts behind for the promise of some kind of future. Valjean is not sure he can give it to him. He does not, cannot blame Javert for what happened all those years, but he still bears the scars, old wounds. Javert does not have to live with those.

“I cannot forget so easily,” Valjean says. He is thankful to still be in his waistcoat, for the scars to be bundled under layers of fabric. But he can see Javert looking, fingers still tapping on the file, nervous. Valjean clears his throat. “I am sure you had only the best intentions.”

Javert nods, bites his lip, does not speak. Looks desperate. His eyes meet Valjean’s and then drift down, to Valjean’s mouth or the cravat at his neck. Valjean folds his hands in his lap, keeps them clasped over his legs. Javert suddenly blurts out, “I think you should tell her.”

This again? He cannot see why it matters so much to Javert. He is not willing to risk hurting Cosette, or losing her any more than he already has. And what would Pontmercy think? If word were to get out, if the Gillenormands were to learn—that would truly be the end of him. “No,” Valjean says, “I cannot make you understand.”

“You might at least try.”

“I have!” Valjean almost laughs. “You do not listen. You call me a good man and expect that to absolve me of my past.”

“All you have ever done has been for others,” Javert says. “How many lives have you saved, in all your years?” Valjean shakes his head, but Javert starts again. “The man under the cart. Your daughter. Me. No doubt there are more you simply have not mentioned.”

“I have only done what needed to be done,” Valjean offers.

“Most people would not.”

Valjean rises to his feet. “Javert, I will tell her when I am ready. For now, she does not need to know.” He reaches for his empty cup and suddenly there is pressure on his wrist, encircling him like a cuff. Javert’s hand, too tight. He looks at Javert and Javert’s eyes are wide and fearful; he releases Valjean’s wrist and his lips are trembling. Valjean cannot bring himself to move. His hand hovers there in suspended motion above the cup.

He closes his eyes again. Exhales. Tells himself not to think of Toulon, tells himself that it was a mistake on Javert’s part—all of this was a mistake, thinking he could ever be touched without fear of pain. Such a thing does not exist. Javert is saying something but Valjean does not hear it. Valjean’s hands ball into fists and he tries, desperately tries, not to remember the sound of the manacles first being fastened around his wrists, the first realization that he would never be free again, the knowledge that he would be marked, stained forever.

Javert’s fingers are frantic at Valjean’s hand, searching for something to touch, but Valjean bristles and steps back, out of Javert’s reach. Javert’s fingers flex helplessly before he stands too, grabs the cups and gathers them near the basin so Valjean doesn’t have to.

“Please stop,” Valjean says, quiet. He takes a deep breath. “Please.”

Javert grips one cup in each palm and Valjean can see the veins in his hand, green and blue, and the look on Javert’s face is unreadable. Sorrowful, maybe. Javert shakes his head. “I cannot keep doing this to you,” he says. “Perhaps it is all I am capable of.”

Valjean tries to make sense of Javert’s words, but cannot. “Doing what?” he says.

“Hurting you,” Javert says.

Something hot strikes through Valjean’s body, burns at his hands and chest and throat. He remembers Toulon and Javert’s bed and the decades-long worry that Javert would find him, and the feeling of seeing him at the barricades, that feeling he could not name then, and when it echoes through him now he thinks it might be fear. Maybe he should be running—maybe he should have never stopped running—but he stands stock-still in front of Javert, the fear in his throat and chest and heart, and waits for Javert to move. Waits.

He sets the cups back down on the table, each movement slow and deliberate, as if Valjean is an animal that might be startled. Valjean supposes the comparison is apt; he does not know what he would do if Javert were to touch him right now, to step any closer. He is grateful for the table between them.

Javert opens his mouth to speak but bites his lip. It occurs to Valjean that this is the first time he has ever seen Javert confused about what to do, the first time he has ever looked so tentative. And maybe there is fear in Javert’s eyes, too, in the shake of his hands. Javert pushes his hair back and his fingers stay there for a moment. When he pulls his hand away, he looks even more disheveled than before.

“I should not have come here,” Javert says. “I am sorry for wasting your time.”

Before Valjean can respond, Javert is putting his hat on and heading out the door, and Valjean cannot bring himself to stop him.

It takes several minutes after Javert leaves before Valjean can move again. His heart has been pounding in his chest, and when he unfolds his fingers from fists, he can feel the little impressions of his nails in the heels of his hands. He sinks back into the chair at the table and holds his head in his hands. If he had only known this would all be so difficult.

When he opens his eyes again, he realizes that the file and the money are still on the table. He does not know what to do with the file—he will have to hide it somewhere in case Cosette makes one of her unplanned visits—but he can at least give the coins as alms tomorrow, since Javert has made it clear that he will not take the money back. He turns one of the coins over in his palm; it is cool against his skin. 

He wants—he does not know what he wants. A part of him wants Javert to come back, if only for the comforting feeling of their hands together. He wants Javert to understand why he is so easily hurt. _He_ wants to understand why he is so easily hurt. He wants this file gone, he wants to not be afraid anymore, he wants answers. He wants peace.

* * *

 

In the morning before he walks to the Gillenormand house, Valjean turns over the previous night’s conversation in his mind. How it had all gone sour so fast. Javert still has much to learn, and Javert is learning, Valjean is sure of that, but there are things he is not sure he will ever really be able to communicate to Javert. Why the hand on his wrists makes him flinch and freeze. Why he has been alone all this time. Why he cannot tell Cosette.

Just the thought of telling her makes his stomach churn. And yet maybe Javert is right, maybe she does deserve to know. Before they were wed, he had thought of telling Pontmercy, making him keep it secret until he died, because he _had_ thought he would die as soon as they were wed. It seemed the end of everything.

Getting dressed, catching sight of the scars around his wrists and ankles, he almost wishes it had been the end of everything. It might have been simpler than this mess with Javert. And it is a mess.

He has not been able to stop thinking about Javert touching him. He cannot say he was entirely surprised when the comforting feeling of their palms together turned to that fearsome thing, hand as manacle. Everything had been fine until then, he had even enjoyed—wanted—Javert’s fingers against his skin, but even that could not last. He hates himself for being so sensitive. Toulon was so many years ago, the manacles were so many years ago, and yet they have stayed with him, in and on his body.

Part of him wants to know if the men he was there with feel this way. If it is fundamental to breaking the law—a kind of lifelong punishment—or simply fundamental to him. He supposes it does not matter which way is true. And he wonders, too, if the problem is Javert. Valjean does not blame him for the things he did, but they still happened, and they still linger. Even now, looking at Javert, it is hard not to remember his young face, his body all angles and wrong beneath his uniform, looking less like a man than a boy.

If he had known then what would happen. That it would all lead to this.

Valjean tightens the cravat around his neck and pushes himself to think of something else. They are going to plant peas today, and he will dig his fingers into the cool dark earth and enjoy the feel of sweat beneath his clothes. At Toulon he had learned the value of labor, the way working could exorcise thoughts of anything else. He wonders how many seeds it would take to make him never think of Javert again. If Javert would mind the new blisters on his fingers, or if he would kiss them too.

At the house, Cosette is smiling, and when she leads him back into the garden, there are the beginning sprouts of green from the onions they planted just a few weeks ago. She says, “I was considering harvesting these for scallions. I should like to eat something a bit more flavorful than what the Gillenormands usually have prepared.” She grins conspiratorially. “Well, not all of them. I think Marius might want some actual onions. But the scallions will be good to start.”

Cosette talks about Pontmercy for some time while Valjean watches her sort out the tools for them. She says he’s begun to talk more to the men at the law office, though most of them are older and don’t really seem interested in him. Valjean bites his tongue to keep from saying something about Pontmercy being a little overeager. He must remember that he is her husband now. Valjean must remember that she loves him, so he must love him, too.

They end up kneeling in the dirt next to each other this time, Valjean pressing the seeds into the earth and covering them with soil, Cosette just behind him, tying thin white twine between the wooden rods stuck into the ground. Her hands are faster, more nimble, and it is okay for Valjean to be more clumsy with these seeds. “A bit further apart, Papa,” she says, and he feels useless for having planted the seeds too close together in the first place. 

Still, she is quiet and watchful, always offering water or shade, though he refuses most of the time. It is more satisfying to work until his back aches than to pause and prevent it. That pain means something was accomplished, that work was done. After the first long row is done, Cosette insists they stop for a moment so he can come inside and eat something, and he acquiesces, if only because it means his time spent with her is a little longer.

Inside, she points him to a basket of crisp green apples and pears bought from the market. Though he is not particularly hungry, he takes one of the apples and savors the delicious sour taste of it in his mouth. He is a little embarrassed by the juice running down his chin, into his beard, but it is good, delightfully crunchy, and he listens to Cosette talk as he eats.

She goes on about Pontmercy, about wanting to expand the garden even more and maybe start selling some of the extra vegetables at the market—“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to eat all those tomatoes we’ve planted,” she says—and she idly peels one of the apples with a paring knife while she talks. Valjean feels a little nervous, watching her work the knife under the apple’s skin, gesturing with the knife now and then. The way she cuts is unsteady and he worries she will slice her thumb open, but he resists the urge to take the knife from her and do it himself. She is an adult now, he must remember that, she isn’t a child anymore.

At times like these, he sees Fantine in her. That prideful look when the last bit of the skin is cut off the apple is familiar, and he recognizes the almost-cautious way she glances at him, like she doesn’t know what he will say, like she’s trying to decipher what he’s thinking. She has not asked about her mother in some time, though certainly Cosette must wonder about her. He has never been able to tell her, but he hasn’t made any excuses for why she was not there. He has simply said she died, which isn’t a lie, exactly.

He finishes the apple and she is still looking at him. “Is something wrong, Papa?” she asks before beginning to cut the newly-peeled apple into thick slices.

“Not at all,” he says, perhaps too eagerly. He tries to arrange his face into something like a smile, but he is sure it looks more like a grimace. Has it been so long?

“I have been babbling all morning,” she says, “do tell me how you have been!” She pops one of the slices into her mouth and waits for him to speak, expectant.

He almost feels panicked, trying to come up with something to tell her. What is there to say? “Javert went back to work at the prefecture,” he says, and immediately feels dumb for saying it.

“The two of you are very good friends,” she says. He cannot tell whether it is a statement or a question. Either way, he does not know how to answer.

“We have known each other—quite a long time, yes.” That is the easiest way of putting it.

“Well, one day you will have to tell me how you met! He seems good for you, Papa, I worry about you being alone in that house all day.”

There’s a pain in his chest. “I am sure Javert would be happy to regale you with the story.”

They spend the hottest part of the day outside in the garden and Valjean works until he sweats through his shirtsleeves. After the third row of peas, Valjean is back to thinking about Javert again, despite having tried not to. He thinks of the bed and Javert’s hand around his wrist and does not know what to make of it. Surely Javert must know the power of his touch, how he can send him back to Toulon in an instant. How Toulon will always be there in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> never not writing about hands sigh


	9. i never could say again what i wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE WAIT

Javert spends the next two weeks aching over Valjean. How quickly things had gone wrong—how sweet those few moments with his mouth on Valjean’s hand had been, how natural and simple it had seemed, and then he had been thoughtless. Struck fear into Valjean again.

He has been hoping that this event might finally sever his attraction to Valjean. He is, after all, dangerous to Valjean, a specter of the past, and Javert has begun to realize that there is no erasing that. Over a stack of papers at the prefecture, Javert wonders if Valjean would ever forgive him, and immediately, stupidly, knows the answer is yes. He does not deserve it. All those torturous years—he has tried to repent for them with soft touch and kind hands and has only complicated the issue more.

And yet he cannot stop thinking of Valjean. At night in bed, where he had once let his hands drift between his legs, he finds himself composing apologies he does not know how to speak. Worse, he dreams of Valjean’s face, of the incriminating file, and all the possible ways the situation could go even more wrong.

Perhaps the most terrible part is knowing that Valjean is not plagued by the same thoughts. Valjean is angry at him, probably, but that break is clean, and Javert is stuck missing the feeling of Valjean’s fingers on his face. It was a mistake, grabbing his wrist like that. It was thoughtless. He has only ever been thoughtless.

Javert does not know how to fix this. He spends the weeks at the station working through papers, months of notes, and what should be a simple task seems nearly impossible. He finds his thoughts wandering, reliving the night over and over again, pinpointing where he went wrong. Bringing Valjean the file was a mistake. Letting himself kiss Valjean’s hand was a mistake. Getting this wrapped up by these feelings was the biggest mistake of all.

But it is too late to undo all that now. He has laid himself open for Valjean, not expecting anything in return—though hoping for it, certainly—and he has said too much. Valjean is good, and he deserves far more kindness than Javert knows how to give him.

On the first day of May, Javert finally grows sick of staring at Blanchet’s terrible handwriting and shoves the stack of papers—smaller now, blessedly—into a drawer in his desk. It’s not as though he can focus on the task, anyway, and maybe if he can redirect all his energy toward something else, he’ll feel better.

He writes to Valjean. It strikes him as desperate even as he’s doing it, and his marks on the paper are frantic and hasty, leaving thick blotches of ink here and there. But perhaps this will be enough—an explanation, an apology, something. Javert does not know what to call it. And this way, he won’t have to face Valjean again, won’t have to look him in the eye or resist the urge to touch him again. It’s impersonal, and maybe not exactly polite, but it might clear his conscience.

Javert fills two pages with uneven script. Rereading his words, he suppresses the urge to rewrite the letter on cleaner paper. Knows that if he did, he’d just throw away the whole thing. He wonders if the letter is too harsh— _I shall not burden you with my presence any longer_ , it says, and _I have done more harm to you than I can ever hope to be forgiven for._ Valjean would disagree with that—the man does not know how to hold a grudge—but it is true.

He hesitates before folding the papers. It strikes him that this might be his last communication with Valjean, this letter written on impulse. Valjean is deserving of more than this, but to see him in person would only lead to more pain. Javert creases the papers neatly and fits them into an envelope, and then seals the envelope before he has time to convince himself otherwise.

And then the name on the envelope. He struggles. It feels wrong now to write _Fauchelevent_ , but to do otherwise would be doing Valjean a disrespect. He puts the name down, along with Valjean’s address, and then stumbles into the street to find a boy to deliver it. There’s a little enclave of them down the street, just far enough from the prefecture that they don’t get shooed away.

Javert motions for the first boy he sees. He’s probably ten or eleven years old, dirt smudged across his face and hands.

“What is your name?” Javert asks.

The boy stammers. “Jean, monsieur.”

It takes all of Javert’s restraint not to laugh then. Of course. “Will you deliver a letter for me?” Javert hands over the letter when the boy nods. The boy leaves dirty thumbprints on the clean white paper of the envelope. Javert tries not to cringe. “How much?”

“Whatever you’ve got,” the boy says, tucking the envelope into a pocket.

Javert counts out more coins than he should and presses them into the boy’s open palm. “Be quick,” Javert says. The boy stares at the coins for a moment, wide-eyed, and then runs off.

He heaves a sigh of—he does not know what. Not quite relief. But there is some anxiety lifted in knowing that this is all out of his hands now. On his walk back to the prefecture, he hopes Valjean will answer, and he hopes Valjean won’t answer, and he hopes that maybe everything will be simpler. And back at his desk, he brings up the stack of papers again, and it’s comforting to sink back into the notes, to believe that this is what’s left for him. This, he is good at. This, he cannot mess up.

That afternoon he counts the parolees mentioned in Blanchet’s notes. There are four. Javert wonders where they came from, their crimes and hometowns and where they were imprisoned first. If he knew them. If they knew Valjean.

And then he fights the urge to knock all the papers off the desk, because Valjean is so firmly under his skin now that even when he’s gone, he’s still there. Javert curses aloud, hopes the boy has delivered the letter and Valjean is satisfied with putting an end to all this, with making things easier for both of them.

It _would_ be easier. It will be easier. Javert reminds himself that this is what he has to work with now—life without Valjean. He’s sealed that with the letter, and it’ll be easier eventually. One day it might even be normal.

He tries not to think about how ridiculous that is, considering Valjean has nearly always been a part of his life. Just not in this capacity. He never could have expected it would have been in this capacity.

An hour or so before the workday ends, there’s a knock at Javert’s door. “Come in,” Javert says, suddenly aware of the tired creak in his voice.

The door opens and there is Valjean, hat held against his chest, opened envelope between his fingers. In two weeks he seems to have thickened; he looks well-fed, younger, even, and the look on his face makes Javert think of Madeleine. There is something bright and not quite angry in Valjean’s eyes. He closes the door behind him without asking.

For once, Javert is dumbstruck.

“What is this?” Valjean says, holding out the envelope. He advances toward Javert’s desk, cautious but firm.

Javert knows he should be standing but Valjean is nearly towering above him, and Javert’s body barely registers the impulse to move. He can’t even register that Valjean is really there.

“Javert,” Valjean says, his tone a little kinder this time. “What do you mean by this letter?”

“You didn’t read it, then?” Javert says. He’s not sure if it’s a question or a prayer.

“I read it, but I don’t understand,” Valjean says. “If you do not want to see me again, then by all means, don’t see me, but—if you think _I_ want to end our friendship, you are—you are very mistaken.”

That doesn’t make sense. Javert shakes his head. “No, no,” he says, “I keep—all I know how to do is make things worse for you.” Words keep falling from his mouth, all wrong, always wrong. “I thought—I don’t know—why are you here?”

Valjean looks at him. Holds up the letter again. “I don’t know what you meant by this. If you want to—if you want to cease our companionship, then save us both the time and just say that. There’s no need for letters; we are friends. We should speak like friends.”

Javert forces himself to stand, forces his legs to bend. Valjean sets his hat down on the desk. “Very well,” Javert says, breathless. “Like friends.”

“We have not spoken in a week,” Valjean says. “Have we forgotten how?”

“Longer,” Javert says. “Longer than that.”

That urge to keep his mouth shut and touch instead pulses through Javert. Valjean’s right hand is splayed on the desk, the letter still in his left hand, and Valjean is still looking at him. Watching. And Javert aches to twine their fingers together, to touch Valjean’s knuckles, the side of his face, but—they must speak. Like friends.

Javert says, “I don’t know why you came here.”

“This letter raised some alarm,” Valjean says. “I think—perhaps we have miscommunicated.”

“Perhaps.”

An uncomfortable, creeping silence. Javert shifts his weight from foot to foot. He is speechless. Valjean taps a finger on the desk.

Valjean sighs. “Javert, I wanted to speak to you, not—not just stand here. I was hoping for some explanation.” When Javert does not answer, Valjean reaches for his hat again and folds the letter back up into his pocket.

“Don’t,” Javert exhales. “Just let me—a moment.”

Valjean looks confused, but not upset, and Javert sinks back down into his chair, holds his face in his hands for a moment, tries to remember what breathing was like. Valjean sits opposite him, stacks of papers on the desk between them like a wall.

“Do you not want to see me again?” Valjean offers.

“No,” Javert says, “no, you—you must know that isn’t the case.”

“Well, I cannot be sure, the way we have been—avoiding each other,” Valjean says. “I am sorry for coming here unannounced, but—I did not know what to make of this. It seemed unlike you.”

Javert’s chest feels tight, constricted by waistcoat and shirt, and he is aware of the light layer of sweat beneath his sleeves, on his neck and face. Valjean is looking at him, expectant, and Javert does not know how to respond. He does not know how to ask to undo the letter, his palm clasped too tightly around Valjean’s wrist, everything else.

He says, finally, “You have given me so many chances and I have wasted them all.”

Valjean laughs. It occurs to Javert that this might be the first time he’s seen Valjean really laughing—not that anxious, choked thing that disguises his worry, but laughter that comes from his throat, makes him close his eyes, tilt his head back. Javert hungers for the soft skin beneath Valjean’s cravat, the exposed sliver of his wrists, the tips of his rough fingers.

How much simpler it would be just to touch. Words complicate everything.

Javert keeps his hands folded in his lap and waits for Valjean to speak. For a moment, he almost enjoys the confusing sound of Valjean’s laughter.

“You are learning,” Valjean says. “You are—not who you used to be.” His face is soft, kinder than it should be, and Javert is lost. Has he changed that much? That seems unbelievable, but less than a year ago, he was full of—vitriol? Hate?—for Valjean. Full of misconceptions. The thought of spending any time with Valjean outside of returning him to prison was inconceivable then, and now—Javert does not want to entertain the thought of not being able to spend time with him. For a moment Javert had resigned himself to being without him again. Now Javert cannot fathom it.

Javert swallows hard. “I don’t understand,” he says.

“You never have,” Valjean says, warm. Javert supposes he is right about that, though it doesn’t make his sudden appearance any less perplexing. “These weeks, I have been thinking—about Cosette, and whether I should—whether she should know.”

Javert’s ears prick up at that. He watches Valjean’s face change, his brow furrow, his lips tighten and press into a thin line. “Oh?” Javert says.

The girl should know. Javert has been sure of that for months now, but convincing Valjean of it—that’s harder, and maybe not a battle Javert should fight. When Valjean believes something, he sticks to it, unwavering.

“I hope I did not—” Javert begins, but catches on his words. “I cannot force you to tell her, it isn’t—my decision, or my life, or—”

“She has been distant,” Valjean says suddenly, and the look in his eyes is frantic, searching. “Concerned for me, I think. She worries. I—” Valjean laughs helplessly. “I have not been able to speak to you or her. These few weeks have been too quiet. I am not so accustomed to being alone anymore.”

Valjean is running a finger around the brim of his hat and his hand is shaking. Javert doesn’t know what to say.

“She has Pontmercy, of course, and he is—enough for her, and when she—learns all of this, she will still have him,” Valjean continues. The words are too fast, rambling, as if he’s trying to reassure himself. Again, there is the temptation to take his hand, to kiss the center of his palm. Javert resists. “I suppose I have been selfish with her. I cannot force her to stay or to love me. Nor can I force you.”

Javert knows Valjean means that he cannot force him to stay. But the juxtaposition of the words, of himself with Cosette, makes something rattle through him, hot and dark. “You are not forcing me,” Javert says. “My letter was a—a mistake.”

Valjean does not seem to hear him. “She should know,” Valjean says. “I should explain it all to her.”

“Valjean—”

“I—would you be there? When I explain.”

Valjean is looking at him, careful, and Javert wants to crack open. He cannot very well tell Valjean _no_ , but the idea of watching him pour himself out for Cosette strikes him as too intimate, too personal. And there is the problem of the girl’s mother. Javert has tried to forget it, has tried to absolve himself of any blame, told himself he was only doing his duty. But—she will have to know. Certainly Valjean will tell her. Even if he does not, Javert will have to tell her. This awful commitment to truth.

He nods. Does not trust himself to form words now. And Valjean nods too, says, “Thank you,” and reaches for his hat again. Javert flexes his fingers in his lap, digs his nails into his thighs, steels himself against his need to touch. There will be time for that eventually, if he can ever mend this, if he can ever learn how to treat Valjean with the gentleness he deserves.

Valjean stands again, thanks Javert again, and Javert’s legs feel new underneath him, as if he is still learning to walk, or is on a storm-tossed ship. He supposes both are true, in their ways. Valjean turns his hat over in his palms again, and they settle on an evening to speak to Cosette, and when Valjean has left, Javert is still breathless, still desperate for Valjean’s skin against his own.

That night in bed, he lets his hands move between his thighs once more. He is full of want and hunger and—perhaps it is wrong to think of Valjean this way now, when Javert does not deserve to touch him again, but—his breath catches. He thinks of Valjean’s face, how long it has been since he felt Valjean’s skin beneath his own, thinks of—Valjean’s wrists, Valjean’s hands, Valjean’s mouth, there and there and _there_ , and spills himself onto the sheets, gasping.

He feels equal parts shame and relief, disgusted at himself for wanting such a thing, for degrading Valjean so in his mind. But better here than Valjean’s house, and better his own hand than Valjean’s, Javert supposes. He bundles the sheets for laundry and cleans himself with cool water, his body still aching, still sensitive and yearning. He has spent so long wanting Valjean, has dreamed of Valjean here next to him, of Valjean’s hands working the washcloth over his skin.

Javert whimpers when his own fingers ghost over himself. Briefly, he wonders if Valjean has ever done this, too. He closes his eyes, satisfies himself with that image, forms Valjean’s name in the back of his throat.

* * *

 

A few evenings later, Valjean appears at his door, looking nervous and disheveled, his hair sticking up in places and too flat in others. The familiar file is tucked beneath his arm and he shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. At first, Valjean does not speak, only looks at Javert with pleading eyes, and Javert cannot respond.

“You walked here?” Javert eventually manages, noticing the dust on Valjean’s shoes. “I shall—find a cab—”

“It is not that much further,” Valjean says.

“It is far enough.”

Valjean does not argue, and soon they are climbing into a cab—Valjean first, shaky, and Javert lingering behind him, watching. It is a short ride, and probably they should discuss what they will say to Cosette, and if Pontmercy will be there, and just how detailed this talk will be. But Valjean is silent, brushing his thumb over the thick file and refusing to meet Javert’s eyes.

It occurs to Javert that now is the time to take Valjean’s hand, now is the time to offer some comfort in a touch, but Valjean looks like an injured animal, easily spooked, and Javert fears what a touch might do to him.

He says, “You are worrying over nothing.”

Valjean taps the file. “This is not _nothing_.”

And Javert is sure he’s done everything wrong again, that maybe he should have just touched Valjean instead. He sighs, keeps his knees from brushing against Valjean’s, and hopes that this goes well. He does not know what he will do—or what Valjean will do—if it does not.

They let themselves in through the front gate and Valjean hesitates at the door. “This will be the last time I see her,” Valjean says.

“Nonsense,” Javert says. But there is worry in his voice, and Valjean’s hand shakes when he moves to knock on the door.

An older female servant opens the door. “Monsieur Fauchelevent,” she says, “and—”

Valjean begins, “Inspector—”

“Monsieur Javert,” Javert cuts in.

She repeats his name, gives a soft, if wary, smile his way before redirecting her focus to Valjean.

“Is madame home?” Valjean says. He holds the file behind his back now, his grip tight.

The woman nods, opens the door wide for them, and leads them to the sitting room. “She will be down in a moment, messieurs,” she says, and then she is gone.

Valjean eyes Javert nervously. The last time they were here together was after Cosette’s wedding—that wonderful night turned wrong in the rain, in the bed. Javert has tried not to think of it. Still, it is hard not to draw comparisons. This evening seems equally as important. He hopes it does not go as sour as the other.

“Papa!”

Cosette is radiant, of course, her hair down in long curls over her back and shoulders. Javert sees so much of Valjean in her; sometimes it is hard to believe they are not related by blood. He gets to his feet, sees Valjean discreetly slip the file beneath the sofa where he is sitting and then stand too.

Even she is cautious about touching Valjean. She pauses before him, as though unsure whether to embrace him, how he would respond. She presses a hand to his arm and the corners of his eyes crinkle. Javert looks away.

“Monsieur Javert, it is always a pleasure to have you here,” she says. “Marius is still at his office,”—she waves her hands—“Something about a difficult case. No matter! You two are company enough.”

Javert glances to Valjean, who is staring at the ground and digging the toe of his shoe into the rug. “I believe your father wanted to—to speak to you.” Javert avoids saying _Fauchelevent_ ; it feels wrong in his mouth, like a lie.

Valjean looks back at Javert, helpless. Unsteady. “Sit,” he says, gentle, and gestures at the sofa.

And then Cosette is suddenly looking confused. “Papa, is something the matter?” She advances toward the sofa cautiously, alternately looking between Javert and Valjean.

They sit, and Valjean says, “Javert, would you—” and motions next to him. Javert moves his chair closer to the sofa, feeling more than a little embarrassment about rearranging the furniture, and Valjean rests his hand on the arm of Javert’s chair.

More than anything, in this moment, Javert wishes he could take Valjean’s hand. Were Cosette not here! He would not hesitate this time. He would bring the knuckles to his lips and kiss and kiss and kiss, offer solace in the one way he knows how. Valjean’s fingers tremble; Javert wonders if there is any way he can comfort Valjean here, now. It seems impossible.

“Cosette, I—” Valjean begins, and his voice already wavers. He glances back to Javert again, and Javert does not know how to help him, whether to speak for him or retrieve the file or to simply let him go. Valjean hesitates before bending and withdrawing the file from beneath the sofa. He sighs before extending it to Cosette. “This is for you.”

Her eyes are wide and confused, but she takes the thick folder from him and opens it slowly. She pauses on each page—Javert can see his old scrawled handwriting, records from Toulon, maps and citations and notes. “Papa,” she says, but she does not finish the thought.

Valjean heaves a breath. “This man—Jean Valjean—his family was poor, and he was—full of hate.” Javert notices the way Valjean stumbles over his own name, and he wonders how long it has been since Valjean last said it. Javert has said the name in hushed tones, hallowed as a prayer, but Valjean says it shamefully. “He spent many years paying for his crime, and he—broke parole, and he was saved by the grace of God, and he—he has tried to make his life worthwhile.”

Cosette turns over the pages and lingers on the map of the Gorbeau house. Javert is certain she recognizes it by the way she stops, turns her head just so. She looks at Valjean, who stares at his hands, and Javert catches himself staring at Valjean’s hands, too, which are shaking even more now. Javert wishes he could steady Valjean somehow. Wishes he could assure him that everything will be alright.

“Jean Valjean,” Cosette says softly. She closes the file with delicate hands and stares at it for a moment.

“Do you—understand?” Valjean says.

She tries to hand the file back to Valjean, but he does not take it. “Papa, I don’t know what I should say.”

His breathing has grown heavier, slower, and Javert recognizes the fearful, wounded look in his eyes. “Say what you will,” Valjean says, “I have prepared myself.” Javert isn’t sure who Valjean is trying to convince.

“This Jean Valjean—he is you,” Cosette says. There is no uncertainty in her voice. “This is why you have always been so secretive.”

Valjean nods. There is an ache in Javert’s chest, a sudden worry that this might go wrong, that this already tenuous thing between Valjean and Cosette might suddenly snap. “You deserve better,” Valjean says. Valjean’s eyes are glassy, his voice caught in his throat.

The file is still in Cosette’s hands and Valjean watches her idly turn through the pages once more. His throat moves as he swallows hard; Javert feels tense, scared, even. “Why were you in prison?” Cosette asks. She points at a word scrawled on one of the pages. “Theft?”

“I stole,” Valjean says simply.

“To feed his family.” The words are out of Javert’s mouth before he realizes he’s said them, and Valjean cuts him a look that is equal parts fear and confusion and maybe a glint of anger.

Valjean says, “That does not matter.”

“Your family? There is more than me?” Cosette sets the file to her side. “Papa, you must tell me everything, we can visit them—you did not need to keep all these secrets!”

She touches his knee and he jerks away, shaking his head. “You do not understand—I am a convict,” he says, his fingers twitching at the cuff of his shirt. “I was there for nineteen years.”

“There is so much you have not told me,” Cosette says. She glances at Javert, briefly makes eye contact with him, and it is hard for Javert not to see Fantine in her, then. He is suddenly wracked with guilt—remembers the woman on the street, how she begged and he pushed her away, how she pleaded and he was cold to her. How Valjean was kind when he was not.

It all comes flooding back then, Toulon and Montreuil and the barricades, and he feels dizzy, lost. How did he ever end up here with Valjean this way, after everything?

“I could not tell you,” Valjean says. “What it would have done to you to know your father was— _is_ —the man I am.” His words are growing faster now, there is something like panic in his voice, and Javert is feeling sick. “You would have been ruined, and I—I could not do that to you, Cosette, I could not let that happen to you.”

She moves closer to him on the sofa and the file falls to the floor, papers slipping out and spreading onto the floor between the three of them. “You are a good man,” Cosette says, and Javert is sure she means it— _how could she not mean it, how could anyone not see that_ , Javert wonders. “You should not have kept all this from me,” she says, compassion in her voice. She sounds like Valjean, she looks like that dying woman on the ground. Javert’s heart throbs. Valjean looks like he may weep.

“He has not told you everything,” Javert blurts out, “he has left out—he—”

“Javert,” Valjean says helplessly, betrayed, and the sound of his own name in that tone sends Javert reeling.

“He should not have been in prison so long—at all—and I was there,” Javert says.

“In prison?” Cosette says.

Valjean says, “Please don’t,” and Javert wants to obey him, wishes he could give Valjean what he wants, but this time, he cannot. He does not know what speaking will entail, but he must do it this time, for Valjean.

“A guard,” Javert says. “Not the whole time your father was there, but—he should not have been there at all, and I should not have spent all those years chasing after.”

There is confusion on Cosette’s face and she looks back and forth between Javert and Valjean in hope of some explanation. Valjean’s face is in his hands; the small pained noise he makes cuts Javert to the bone. He had hoped to be done hurting Valjean. Still, he cannot stop the words coming now.

“After he broke parole, he revitalized Montreuil-sur-Mer—he has not told you that either, I assume—owned a factory and became the mayor. Has he told you about your mother?” Cosette shakes her head, her jaw gaping. “I suspected not. Valjean?”

“If you wish to further shame me, Javert, you will have to do it yourself,” Valjean says, resigned.

“I do not—” Javert begins, but trying to convince Valjean that he is not trying to shame him is hopeless. Javert knows that. “She sold herself for you—did everything she could _for you_. And what she could not do, your father did. And I—I would have unjustly sent her to prison if not for your father’s intervention.”

He remembers Fantine’s face in the infirmary, her absolute horror at seeing him, and how he had taken pleasure in it, in finding out Valjean. The thought makes bile rise up in his throat. He was heartless then, still something broken from stone, and the warm thing in him is cracking now at the memory.

“I am the reason she is dead,” Javert says. His gaze falls on Valjean, whose shoulders are hunched and whose back is bent. He looks old and tired, and the cuff of his shirt has come undone in the chaos of this conversation. There is a sliver of ridged skin visible when Valjean drops his hands from his face. “I am the reason your father has kept all this from you. I have—spent my life following your father in pursuit of some misguided justice. It was a mistake.”

It is not quite an apology. But it is a start.

Valjean says, “All that is forgiven now.”

“Perhaps it should not be!” Cosette nearly shouts. Where there was fear in Fantine’s eyes, there is defiance in Cosette’s. “We have been hiding our entire lives and—it is all because of him?” She shifts her gaze to Javert. “Am I to be satisfied with all this—with knowing what you did to my mother and to my father? Convict or not, he is a good man, and I am to believe you two are suddenly companions?”

“Cosette, that is all behind us,” Valjean starts, and Javert finds himself talking over him.

“I know better than anyone that he is a good man,” Javert says, his voice rising. “That he still associates with me is far more kindness than I deserve.”

“Papa,” she says, “how can you?”

She waits for an answer. Valjean does not give her one.

Javert thinks perhaps she is correct. Knows she is correct, that Valjean has no reason to give him time or attention or companionship. And surely Valjean must know how grateful he is for everything, even if he has not been able to say it aloud.

“I do not understand how you can forget these things. How you can act as if they never happened.” Cosette shakes her head.

“I have not forgotten,” Valjean says, with an air of finality. “We have simply moved forward.” He dares a look back at Javert, and Javert feels his chest tighten.

So that is it then. They have moved forward. That seems like enough.

“Some things are not forgivable,” Cosette says.

“But people are,” Valjean says. “What I did was not forgivable and yet I was forgiven.”

“They are not nearly the same thing!” Cosette protests.

Javert does not know what to say. Whatever words he comes up with will be wrong, surely, and he has already said too many wrong things this evening. This was supposed to be about Valjean, not about him, and to have this light turned on his past, his wrongdoings, makes him feel sick.

“Perhaps I should go,” Javert says, and moves to his feet before Valjean or Cosette can disagree with him. He takes his hat, nods awkwardly at each of them, and goes out. He thinks Valjean says his name, but he keeps going. He must keep going.

In the cool evening air, Javert thinks of forgiveness. He is certain he does not deserve it, but that Valjean would give it anyway. Has given it. That does not make sense. Javert has never asked to be forgiven, not for this. How can Valjean forgive him if he has not asked for it? How can Valjean forgive him at all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to wren/vaincs for betaing!!


	10. don't be so scared of the things you love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> terribly sorry for the delay on this chapter--hopefully it was worth the wait! my endless thanks to vaincs and icicaille for variously betaing and helping me work through this mess.

Valjean at once feels betrayed and unburdened and abandoned. Javert has left him here with Cosette, and he hurts. Perhaps it should not surprise him that Javert has run out—Valjean cannot really blame him for doing so, given the tenor of the conversation, but he had thought they might do this together, as friends or companions. It is a small thing, and perhaps it should not wound Valjean so much. Still, he finds himself wishing Javert were here with him.

Cosette sits next to him, too close, and she looks like Fantine, or what he remembers of her. She is defiant, brave, but soft, with a hand resting lightly on his forearm. She shakes her head; she has been staring down since Javert walked out. “I don’t understand, Papa,” she says, “this is all so much.”

He does not know what to tell her. Javert has set everything off-balance once again. This was supposed to be simple—as simple as it could be, anyway—and now it is even more complicated. Valjean supposes he should have expected this, for things are never simple when Javert is involved. He sighs. “I am sorry for keeping it from you.”

And again, she shakes her head. “You did all of this for me and my mother,” she says. “I cannot be upset with you for that, though—though I wish you might consider your own needs. You do so much for others, I think you must forget to take care of yourself, sometimes.” Her laugh is sad, and when she looks up at him, her eyes are wet, rimmed with tears.

“You need not worry about me,” he says. At once he is thankful and disappointed that Javert is not here. No doubt he would take Cosette’s side in this, suggest he hasn’t been eating enough—but his presence is calming, and he is sturdy, and Valjean somehow feels less afraid when he is around.

“But I do! How am I not to worry when you’ve shown me this?” She gestures hopelessly at the floor, the papers spilled before them. “And Monsieur Javert is your friend, but—” She stops before finishing the sentence. “I should learn to hold my tongue.”

“Go on,” Valjean says. “Speak.” He steels himself for whatever she may say. She is too perceptive for her own good, and has always had a way of cutting him when she does not intend to. He readies himself for this wound.

She takes a deep breath, looks at him tentatively. “He is your friend, but he is the cause of all our troubles!” She shrugs. “When I was a child, our lives seemed like some great adventure, always running from place to place. But to know why, now, and to know he is your friend—surely you must understand why it unsettles me.”

“That is the past,” Valjean says. He bears Javert no ill will, no anger save what flares up after the nightmares, sometimes. “He is different now.”

“Can people change so much?” Cosette says. She folds her hands in her lap, stares down at the papers on the floor. “I am sorry, Papa, but what if he hurts you, or us, again?”

And Valjean thinks of Javert’s hands on his, Javert’s mouth on his—months ago now—and wants to tell her that Javert would never intentionally hurt them again. That Javert has been careful, but this thing of theirs is complicated, and _he_ is complicated, and what is between them will never be easy.

“He has good intentions,” Valjean says simply.

Cosette sighs. “Good intentions or not, I cannot help but worry.”

Her palm is flat on his forearm and he is aware of his unbuttoned cuff, the ugly band of scars circling his wrist exposed to her eyes. If she is looking at them, he does not notice. He focuses on the weight of her hand, a reassuring touch—this unfamiliar thing between them, this barrier broached.

“If it will alleviate your concern, I shall—I shall end our acquaintanceship.” That word is not enough for whatever he and Javert  have. To put any sort of name to it feels reductive. “Javert has voiced a similar worry—perhaps the two of you are correct.”

Valjean’s stomach sinks at the idea of losing Javert again. First Cosette, and then Javert. He supposes that this is the course of things, this is the only way his life could be expected to play out, but that does not ease the pain of the blow. Javert is his friend, or something like a friend, and the only person other than Cosette who cares for him. And though he does not understand why, he is certain that Javert does care for him.

“Has he?” Cosette says, and it throws Valjean from his thoughts. She lifts her hand from Valjean’s arm and he feels strange without it there, the weight of his skin too heavy to bear. He is not sure when he entered this new world where he is touched kindly. “I do not want you to be unhappy, but—I suppose if he has been concerned, too, then…”

He braces himself for her command. _End this_ , he expects her to say. He is resigned to finishing his life without ever knowing the warmth of Javert’s touch again, without ever feeling Javert’s mouth on his knuckles. Briefly, he thinks of how he will go on—he will do as he had planned at Cosette’s engagement, before he was tied up in feelings for Javert. He will go far away, and they will all forget about him, and he will die.

“If you will take care of yourself, Papa, if you will do what is best for you—if he makes you happier, then I cannot ask you to deny yourself that,” she says. “You have already denied yourself so much for me.”

It takes him by surprise. She is shaking her head again, her eyes downcast, and this time, Valjean is sure she is staring at his wrist. He tentatively moves to button the cuff, to hide away the marks on his skin. The feeling of the fabric against his wrist is distant, fuzzy, like sound heard while underwater.

“But—but I cannot forgive him so easily.” Her fingers suddenly still his, brushing against the button at his wrist. “I do not think I can forgive anyone who has hurt you so.”

“In time,” Valjean says. “When you are ready.”

“Perhaps,” Cosette says. She glances at the papers on the floor and leans down to pick one up. Valjean recognizes Javert’s handwriting on it—it has not changed much in all these years, though everything else has. “Did you think I would disown you for this?”

“I would not have held it against you,” he says. “I have kept so much from you, Cosette. I thought it would pain you to know the truth.”

“It only pains me to know how you have been treated,” she says. “You, of all people.” 

He is not sure what she means by that—what makes him any less deserving of what has happened to him than anyone else—but he will not make her say it, for there are tears on her cheeks now, and her eyes are red. He pats her hand and it is small in his, and she is a child again, still, and she throws her arms around his shoulders and cries her child’s tears into his coat.

* * *

It is a few days later when a gamin brings a letter to Valjean’s door. Valjean tips the boy well, takes the letter from him and sends him on his way, and opens the envelope. The letter is from Javert, of course. Valjean supposes he has been expecting it. They have not spoken since the night at the Gillenormand house, as is becoming usual for them, and Javert does not do well with so little communication.

This letter, though, is different—Javert’s familiar handwriting is little more than a scrawl, the page heavy with ink splotches. And where Javert is usually wordy, his sentences meandering before finally getting to the point, this letter is short and simple. _We must speak soon_ , it reads, _face to face_.

Valjean feels alarmed upon reading it. This is quite uncharacteristic of Javert, to send so little information, to request a meeting with so little explanation. An image flashes in Valjean’s mind, rips through him and settles, heavy, in the pit of his stomach—Javert at the banks of the Seine again, Valjean too late this time, his body washed up days later, blue and bloated.

He draws in a breath. Surely Javert would not. He has made promises.

Valjean fetches paper and pen and ink and scribbles out an equally short response. _I would be pleased to see you this evening_. He folds the page into an envelope, and he worries and hopes.

* * *

Night falls and Javert has still not arrived. Valjean has spent the hours pacing, finding himself unable to focus on books or prayer, even. He is making tea—a nervous habit—when there finally, blessedly, comes a knock at the front door. Valjean scrambles to unlock it, nearly tripping over his feet as he does. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach is still there, and is only slightly alleviated upon opening the door.

Javert looks in a sore shape, his face flushed and hair disheveled, long strands loose from his queue. His jaw hangs, he breathes too heavily, and there is something in his eyes that sets Valjean unsteady.

“Come in,” Valjean says. He hopes it sounds cheerful. “Tea?”

He has only barely shut the door when Javert blurts out, “I’ve resigned from my post.”

Valjean almost drops his cup of tea. “Again?” He turns and Javert is staring down, digging the toe of his boot into the floor. “You’ve only just started back.”

“May I sit down?” Javert asks, voice raw. Valjean watches Javert’s fingers twitch against his thigh, stretching and digging in before closing into fists.

“Of course,” Valjean nods, gesturing to the sofa near the fireplace. He wonders if he should start a fire, or fetch a blanket—he is suddenly aware of the chill, and he fears Javert may be cold or uncomfortable. Valjean lingers at the fireplace, thinking, and feels the weight of Javert’s gaze on his back.

“Come sit,” Javert says. It is less a command than a plea, a tone Valjean has still not grown used to hearing from Javert. Valjean follows, forgets about the tea in the kitchen, and sits next to Javert on the sofa, a distance between them.

It is strange to share this space, to feel the weight of another next to him like this. Valjean has missed it—he can admit that—and it is comfortable to be so close. Still, they do not touch, and Javert’s hands are still in fists at his thighs. Valjean rests a hand on the cushion that separates them, his fingers splayed over the fabric, and thinks of Javert kissing his knuckles again. He had not realized how much he had yearned for that touch. Now it seems close, palpable, but impossible, too.

There is still the desperate look in Javert’s eye when he speaks again. “I resigned from my post,” he repeats. “This morning, I—I went to the prefecture, and I sat at my desk and I—could not. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything.” He avoids Valjean’s eyes. “And so I tendered my resignation. It is done.”

“Done,” Valjean says. He is more than a little confused—hadn’t Javert, just weeks ago, been thrilled to return to work? Again, he thinks of Javert at the Seine, Javert hopeless, and wants to reach for him, beg him not to take such drastic measures. “You are not going to—” Valjean starts, but Javert cuts him off with a scoff.

“No, Valjean, I am _not_ going to—I promised you.” Javert shakes his head. “Do you think so little of me?”

Valjean has not forgotten those half-conscious promises, almost a year ago now, made in his bed in the middle of the night. It is a relief to hear that Javert has not forgotten them, either. “I think my worry is understandable,” Valjean says. “Your letter was alarming.”

“It was all very sudden, I suppose,” Javert says. “But I needed to speak to you. I _need_ to speak to you.”

“Are we not speaking?”

Javert sighs and flexes his hands against his thighs again. And then—after what feels like a lifetime—he takes Valjean’s hand, and Valjean feels himself relax, his skin warm under Javert’s touch. How long has it been? He has needed this, wanted this, and now it is his. Javert draws a long finger over a thick vein that runs between Valjean’s knuckles, breathing quietly, the desperate look still in his eyes. He turns toward Valjean for a moment, then clasps Valjean’s hand in his own. Valjean can feel sweat between their palms.

Javert’s mouth is gaping. Valjean is sure his is, too, but—he refocuses. It is hard to concentrate on anything but the feeling of their hands together again, finally, finally, but he forces himself to speak.

“Why did you resign?” Valjean says.

Javert looks at him, and Javert’s thumb is moving against his hand, and Javert swallows hard. “If this—we—are to continue as—friends,”—he stumbles over that word—“then I cannot continue my career with the police.”

And Valjean does not understand that—to think of Javert without the police, to think of Javert as anything other than police, is unfathomable. Antithetical to Javert’s existence. But Valjean had thought this softness was antithetical to Javert’s existence, too, and he has been craving that for weeks now. Javert squeezes his hand, and Valjean tries to put the contradictions away. He stares at Javert, feels his brow furrow, lets his gaze drift to their hands.

But he cannot keep himself from speaking. “Javert, I don’t see how those two things are—”

Then Javert is shifting, still holding Valjean’s hand but lowering himself to the floor, and Valjean is even more confused than before. Javert is on his knees before Valjean, Valjean’s hand held in his own, and he is staring up at Valjean with steely eyes betraying—fear, maybe, or something else Valjean cannot decipher. Valjean is bent forward just so, Javert’s face inches from his knee. There are strands of silver in Javert’s hair—Valjean has never noticed them until now—and Javert is breathing too hard.

“I have hurt you,” Javert says. “I know you will never admit it, but I have allowed so much harm to come to you.”

“That is—that is not true,” Valjean starts.

“Please,” Javert begs, and Valjean quiets himself. He feels his chest tighten as Javert’s fingers slip to the cuff of his sleeve, unbutton it, expose the marked skin there at his wrist. Javert turns up the cuff and pushes it back, up Valjean’s forearm, and sets his fingertips there where the scars are thickest. Valjean watches Javert’s fingers move over the scars, but has no sensation of touch except where Javert’s thumb rests between the bones of his hand. “This should never have happened to you,” Javert says. “Can you even feel me?”

There is disgust in Javert’s voice, and Valjean is sure that it is the scars that have disgusted him. “No,” Valjean says, the word hard to speak, and Javert visibly winces.

“I let this happen to you,” Javert says. Even though Valjean cannot feel the pressure of Javert’s fingertips, he can see the tenderness, the lightness, with which Javert moves over the marred and bunched skin. “I may well have given you the ones on your back.”

Valjean cringes. He has tried to put those scars out of his mind—but of course, he cannot forget them. They are his to bear. “Things were different, then,” he says.

“That is no excuse.” Javert is repeating the process on Valjean’s other wrist, unbuttoning the cuff and stroking the scars, gentle. Valjean has never let another person touch them before, and he had certainly never expected Javert to be the first. But Javert glances up at him before touching, and Valjean cannot bear to stop him. “You have suffered—so much, Valjean, endlessly. At my hands. What I have done to you, the pain I have caused you all these years—it is unforgivable. But I—it is a folly, but I ask for your forgiveness.”

“Of course, Javert, I have never held any of this against you—it is all forgiven. Everything.”

“No,” Javert says. “I do not think you understand the—the magnitude of what I have done to you.” He has gone back to holding Valjean’s hand now, his thumb resting over the scars. “For so long you were not even human to me.”

“You were doing your job—come now, this is unnecessary,” Valjean mumbles. There is an unpleasant heat in his chest, an unsettling feeling of too much attention, too much touch. He still cannot feel the fingers at his wrists but he knows they are there, mapping the old mottled skin.

“It is—absolutely necessary!” Javert’s voice breaks, and when Valjean looks down, Javert’s hands are shaking. “You forgive and forgive—and your daughter is right, you should not forgive such awful things. To think I might once have thrilled to see you die. You cannot forgive that.”

Valjean hardly knows what to say. He cannot begin to process this—Javert telling him what is and is not forgivable. He has never thought anyone beyond forgiveness. Certainly not Javert. And now Javert is on his knees before him, begging to be forgiven and telling Valjean that he should not be.

“I do not know what you want,” Valjean says, and he flexes his fingers helplessly against Javert’s hand.

Javert squeezes Valjean’s hand again. “I want you to understand the wrong I’ve done to you.”

“I do,” Valjean says. “I of all people should understand it.”

“But you—you think you were deserving of such suffering.”

“Was I not? I have paid for my crimes, that is all.” Valjean shakes his head and almost wants to pull away from Javert, but the softness of his hands is welcoming, soothing.

“A lifetime of suffering is not equivalent to stealing bread.” Javert unfolds Valjean’s fingers, strokes each one, slow and gentle and measured. “I stole so many years from you.”

Briefly, Valjean considers what his life might have been, had he never been on the run, had Javert never chased after him, had it all been different. Would he have still ended up here, Javert’s fingers brushing over his scars? It is not a thought worth entertaining for long—that is some other person’s life, not his, and there is no use imagining what might have been. Fate, or Providence, has brought him here, to this.

“You have not been treated the way you deserve to be treated,” Javert says, pressing his mouth to the heel of Valjean’s hand, “and for that, I am sorry.”

Valjean’s skin is new under Javert’s lips, and it is difficult not to believe him when he speaks so sweetly. Valjean has always believed his life—everything that has happened to him, Toulon and Montreuil and everything in-between—was a punishment, was a way of atoning for his sins.

Javert must sense Valjean’s hesitation, because he suddenly lifts his mouth from Valjean’s hand and stares up at him. “I wish there were some way to make you believe this,” Javert says, his lips moving against Valjean’s knuckles.

Valjean does not know what to say to him. It would be easy to feign belief, just to please Javert, to say out loud, _I did not deserve this_ , and feel nothing. But to do so would be to lie to him, and Valjean cannot do that to Javert. Javert is still looking at him, searching, hoping, and Valjean swallows down his words. His lip twitches. Javert’s fingers are still against his scars.

“You told me once about a bishop who changed you,” Javert says. “Maybe you do not remember telling me.”

It had been not too long after the river—one of the early nights, when Javert was still bundled in Valjean’s bed, roaring about the pain in his ribs and flinching at every touch. Valjean remembers speaking softly, the candlelight sputtering in the warm summer breeze through the window, Javert harrumphing. He can recall talking about forgiveness, the impossibility of it, and Javert seemingly ignoring him.

“I do,” Valjean says, and suddenly feels sick to his stomach.

“You said he saw the worst parts of you and forgave anyway. You were a thief.”

“I _am_ a thief,” Valjean says.

Javert shakes his head, reaches up and places a hand at Valjean’s cheek. “You _were_ a thief.”

Valjean breathes, low and heavy. Javert draws a thumb across the bone under his eye, the pressure a pinpoint, tense. Valjean wants to unravel under Javert’s hand. He forces himself to stay steady, to breathe, to look Javert in the eye.

“Do you remember what you told me?” Javert asks.

 _Of course, of course_ , Valjean wants to say, _how could I forget_? Valjean had thought it fruitless then—talking of forgiveness and right and wrong to Javert, who was full of anger and bitterness and hurt. But he had told it the way he has always remembered it: an ex-convict, desperate, lashing out against an innocent man who had tried to help him. That man responding not with hate but with love. Being transfigured by forgiveness, by the purchase of a new soul for pieces of silver.

Valjean just nods.

“You said you were on your knees in front of him and you expected him to condemn you. You said you deserved that.” Javert’s fingers slip down Valjean’s cheek, over the hair at Valjean’s chin. “But he made you new, despite the theft and the—you said, the hate in your heart.”

And Javert’s fingertips are against Valjean’s throat, the smooth skin where there had once been an iron collar. Here there is sensation, dull and distant but present. He can feel Javert’s fingers trembling, pausing before making soft strokes, and he hears the quiet noise he makes before he realizes he has made it. It is not quite a cry but something equally involuntary—his body sighing at the tenderness of Javert’s touch, its fearlessness.

“I would ask you,” Javert says, “to look at me as I was—as I _am_ —and know that I would undo all of it, even if it meant never ending up here, if it could keep you from suffering. I would sacrifice this to keep you from harm. It would not be a difficult decision.” He no longer meets Valjean’s eyes; he drops his hand back to Valjean’s wrist. For a moment, he only touches there, his finger rising and dipping over the ridges of scars, but then—Javert lifts Valjean’s wrist to his lips and kisses just below the heel of Valjean’s hand. Valjean cannot feel it but he is certain that it is unbearably soft, unfathomably gentle.

The breath leaves his body. He wants to stroke Javert’s hair, he wants to hold Javert’s head against his chest and know where else his lips might wander, he wants, and wants, and wants.

Javert’s mouth lingers at Valjean’s wrist for a moment and Valjean cannot bring himself to pull away. He is thankful when Javert replaces his lips with his thumb again and finds Valjean’s eyes. “I have done unforgivable harm to you, Valjean. I cannot give back the years I took from you. But I would ask you to see that I took them, and see how I have hurt you, and—and I would ask you to make me new. I am asking your forgiveness.”

Then—he turns his face against the side of Valjean’s knee, and steadies himself there with a palm at Valjean’s calf. He holds Valjean’s hand loosely in his own, his body shaking, and there is the sudden feeling of something wet at Valjean’s knee.

It occurs to him that Javert—wood and stone, _Javert_ —is weeping.

Valjean feels helpless. To remove his hand from Javert’s would be to abandon him, and Valjean cannot do that. Instead, he thinks of that morning in Digne: rocks digging into his knees, his body aching and hot with embarrassment, and how the bishop had bent next to him, presented him with the silver, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Valjean remembers it vividly. There was, as there has always been, the instinct to run, to flee. But the bishop’s face and touch was kind and steady—the first kind touch in uncountable years—and there was God, there was absolution, there was promise.

He cannot absolve Javert of his sins. He does not have the power to do that. But he sets his free hand at Javert’s shoulder and feels Javert’s body quiver.

“Javert,” he says, but Javert only buries his face in Valjean’s knee, his nose pressed against the fabric of Valjean’s trousers. This is the first time Valjean has ever seen him cry—indeed, Valjean did not quite think him capable of it—and Valjean does not know how to react. Javert is mumbling something— _I wish I could undo it, I wish, I wish_.

He cannot imagine a life without the pain, the suffering, the winding road that has led them here. He cannot imagine his wrists, his ankles, his back without thick scars, or a night that passes easily, with no lingering thoughts of the chain or the lash. It is unfathomable, to believe anything else might have ever been possible for him.

He thinks again of the bishop, his inhuman kindness and trust that there was something good in him. And he thinks of Javert at Toulon, young, the lash in his hand, and older, at Montreuil, following, and by some twist of fate, at the barricade. His commitment had seemed almost admirable.

Javert says he would undo all of it. Can such a thing be true? Even here, even now, Valjean doubts—but Javert would not lie to him, not about this, and Javert is broken against his knee. That must mean something. Valjean catches sight of the scar at his wrist and realizes he cannot remember what it looked like before. The skin there must have been smooth once, before it was cuffed and chained and bloodied day after day. His wrists would have still been red and raw when the bishop took him in. His ankles, too, and his back would have been a mess of breaking scabs and old scars. And yet the bishop never hesitated.

Nineteen years. More than that, if he counts all the years he has been running. He has only just stopped. He does not know what he would have done with that time. Would he have still ended up with Cosette? Or here, with Javert?

He lifts Javert’s head, gently, and sees his face is streaked with tears. Javert does not meet his eyes, and Valjean cannot ask him to. Instead, he slips a hand under Javert’s arm and pulls him back up onto the sofa—no easy task, given how Javert’s body goes limp when Valjean touches him.

Javert swallows back his tears, his lower lip trembling as if he wants to speak. Valjean only looks at him, hopes for some sort of connection, guidance on what to say.

Suddenly, Javert reaches out and touches Valjean’s face again. His fingertips press against Valjean’s jaw, rub the soft spot below Valjean’s earlobe. It is courageous of Javert to touch so easily. Valjean does not mind it. He places his own hand over Javert’s—Javert draws in a sharp breath, and their knees brush against each other—and lets himself touch Javert’s rough knuckles.

He is still not quite sure of what to say—what is right or wrong, what will make Javert happy. He thinks of his wrists again, and Javert touching them, and wonders how it might feel to someone else. How it might feel at all. He realizes he will never know, never feel Javert’s fingers there, never be unscarred. But—perhaps Javert will touch him anyway, with that kind of uncomfortable reverence that he is learning to enjoy.

The bishop gave him a second chance, a second life, all those years ago. He had not even wanted it, but it had been granted to him. And now Javert is on his knees, pleading for the same thing.

Valjean swallows hard, breathes deeply. Then, finally, speaks.

“Javert, I—I forgive you. For everything.”

Javert exhales, heavy, and all the years, all the distance between them melts away. His thumb moves over Valjean’s face again, a smooth arc, finally settling at the corner of Valjean’s mouth. He looks as though he wants to speak, but his bottom lip trembles, and he makes soft, small noises that might be sobs.

Valjean repositions Javert’s hand just so and kisses the pad of Javert’s thumb. Javert’s eyes close when he does. “All is forgiven,” Valjean says between kisses. “All is forgiven.”

He kisses Javert’s thumb, repeats those words, over and over until he is sure Javert understands. He becomes, at some point, vaguely aware of the tears pricking at his own eyes, but cannot be bothered to wipe them away. Javert’s hand is still against his face, and Javert’s thumb is still against his lips, and this is a warmth too sweet to abandon.

For a long time, they stay like that, until the candles burn down to almost nothing. Eventually, the tears on their faces dry, and Valjean finds himself feeling lighter. This kind of easy touch might once have made him uncomfortable, but now he almost relishes in it.

It is a strange thing, to be asked to make a man new. It is stranger still to desire and be desired. But these things are coming easier to him, now, and he holds Javert’s hands in his own, and tries to forget how his hands felt before, when they were empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> works that were invaluable in my writing of this chapter (and all of this fic up to this point) include elaine scarry's _the body in pain_ and ["forgiveness: an interview"](http://www.jstor.org/stable/823274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) by julia kristeva and allison rice.


End file.
